Augustin Pyramus de Candolle’s Touch-Me-Not Plant

Origin
Originally just collecting herbs and miscellaneous plants as a hobby, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle developed a love for botany and the study of plant life. His research created an entirely new genus and documented hundreds of new plants under his own classification system, now known as taxonomy. de Candolle firmly believed nature’s plants were constantly at war for space and food; Charles Darwin considered this interpretation correct and incorporated it into his theory of evolution.

He noticed something strange in the leaves of the mimosa pudica, known as the sensitive or touch-me-not plant. Its leaves would retract and shake when disturbed and then return to their former position. A pattern of constant opening and closing occurred every 22-23 hours, regardless of environmental factors such as the earth’s rotational period. de Candolle had discovered the idea of a biological system independent of the environment to keep organisms on specific time intervals, the circadian rhythm.

Effects
The leaves will naturally curl inwards when brushed by and repeat several times until they normalize. Causes plants to experience drastic changes in their chronobiologic patterns. They will sprout, germinate, wilt and pollinate out of order with the seasons, growing large to revert into a seedling and begin rotting away. However, for every geological hour the earth experiences, the affected plant will entirely change genus, transforming tulips into redwoods, gourds and ferns without control.