You didn't mention what you want from us. Some books you might try: "The Secret Life of Plants" and "The Sound of Music and Plants". Those have been around for a while. There's probably much more recent research available.

Good luck!

I have collected a few names of plants that might possibly, might, just possibly be used for experiments with music and plants within the constraints of the "science project"
Neptunia

http://www.sarracenia.com/galleria/galleria.html

Mimosa pudica

Drosera

Venus flytrap Dionaea muscipula

Shrankia or Neptunia

Wild Sensitive Pea, Cassia nictians.

Albizia

fire fern

Oxalis (shamrock)

Cassia
fasciculata (partridge pea)

Calmodulin (This one was used in a (?)university experiment on plants and music and was reported to be quite sensitive.)

Please make corrections, additions or deletions. I have made no attempt to line up common names with scientific names nor to correct the spelling. This is a copy/paste list of names of sensitive plants that might be available to the middle school student with a boom box.

Speaking as one who has judged high school and junior high botany in a regional science fair for 20 years, this one won't hold much water compared to the rest. If you're just trying to keep the kid busy, it might work, but don't expect any of the judges to take it seriously.

In my OP I was thinking of using music and plants as a tool in general science to illustrate sound waves; the idea being that sound reaches out and "touches" plants not that plants hear. (In my research I have learned that his can be demonstrated with a candle flame too.) The more advanced student might call it bio-physics and get a CD with pure tones and incorporate decibel levels. (e.g. will static of the same db cause a mimosa to fold its leaves as would a pure tone?)

I would never think of it as keeping the kid busy but rather capturing their attention in the name of science. And I would never call it botany at least until the student is into serious plant physiology and THIGMOMORPHOGENESIS.

I'm intrigued. But I don't find changing the volume on a CD to be useful for an experiment -- too many variables. It's easy to generate contolled tones with a computer. Once the student got a reaction from the plant to a computer-generated tone, she could look at the effects of varying not just intensity, but also frequency. What differences might there be in the reaction of the plant to a constant tone vs one that varies? Sounds like fun and something well within the capacity of a high school student.

Sharon

People on one of the other forums say there are a lot of Mimosa seed and Mimosa plants in 4" pots this year at many of these places like WalMart where nurseries overflow at this time of year. If this is widespread it might be a good time to get plants for a dry run with your computer speaker or a boombox.

Link below is from the Eastern Connecticut State University I think (I hope it works for you, I have had some trouble with it taking me back to more generalized home site stuff.)

They mostly want to discourage experiments of the sort that I am suggesting. We are too dumb and ill equipped and there is nothing to be learned from music and plant projects anyway, sort of arguments.

I don't find it hard to imagine how a plant could respond differently to different types of music without any ability to hear or evaluate. Given that a plant responds to sound at all, it might well respond differently to different frequencies, intensities, and pulses or rhythms. I do believe controlled tones from a computer are the way to go. Controlling variables is the biggest problem with any experiment, conducted by scientists at any level of training and experience.

A few things:
First, there is NO evidence that plants respond to music of any kind. I am fully aware of all the silly "experiments" quoted in the dovesong website, but the protocols and methodologies used in these were so bad, and the controls so poorly selected, that NO information can be gleaned from them. What they DO respond to is loud volumes, which, whether you call it thigmomorphogenesis, or any other thing (BTW, the definition in the link above is incorrect) results in stunted growth and poor growth.
I have had numerous "discussions" about this with its proponents on the net. To a person they were not trained in scientific method, and were not in a postion to evaluate the claims made by sites like dovesong. As part of this ongoing debate, I was "forced" to undertake this experiment a few times myself. Each time the result was differnt. As anyone here probably knows, any given batch of seeds will respond differntly. Chance will ALWAYS make one batch outperform another. In my latest experiment (using snap beans) the controls in silence did the best, the ones exposed to classical (that was supposed to aid their growth) were doing so badly that I had to rescue the seeds and hand transplant, as they seemed to have no idea which way was up. The one exposed to rock faired better, almost as good as controls. My experience, and that of other (usually children in science fairs) indicates that it is merely luck of the draw. In any given experimental run, any batch can do better. That is why you need LARGE sample sizes, and repeated experimental runs. None of the experiments on the dovesong site has been replicated consitently. This is at the heart of science, and it would be nice if science fairs did more to get this point across. Elsewise I can flip a coin and conclude that coins always land tails up. Not just MHO, but the result of empirical evidence. As the great physicist Richard Feynmean said, if your theory does not agree with experimental data, it is wrong. Period.
Second, I have had many conversations on this topic with Ross Koning, the author of the above referenced page, and I can assure you that it definitely is NOT his position that poeple are "too dumb and ill equipped [sic] and there is nothing to be learned from music and plant projects anyway, sort of arguments." At least not everyone. What he IS saying is that children learning in underfunded schools with teachers who are not able to individually shepherd children through the complicated maze of necessary controls and protocols are done more harm than good using this as an experiment in a science fair, as it teaches bad science, and helps to propagate this myth to the next generation of impressionalbe young people who are not critical enough to question things adults tell them, and just assume that they are true.
While I certainly do not agree with Ross on everything, in fact I DO think that these experiments can be performed, as long as the teacher does not start out by saying that "you will find that the ones exposed to Mozart will do better," and makes sure they use a large sample size and adequate controls. In fact, these non-conformatory experiments are actually far more informative, scientifically thatn those that have a positive result, and lead to better science education. Not sure how great a sciece fair projst it would make, since most people will see the results as a failure. Perhaps the experiment should not be set up as "how music aids plant growth," but "challenging long-standing assumptions that music does affect plant growth."

OK, so I can neither type nor spell at 12:30 in the morning.

I would like to say that I am to do a science project on...well anything worth working a year or two towards. I was very intrigued with the mimosa weed and would like suggestions as to what I could do. thankyou

I was wondering whether or not it had to do with individual cellular resonant frequencies/cavities. Would plants tend to react to a planetary constant of 8.44 or whatever hz (even though they claim it is rising) thus eliminating the other uncontrollable biases in music. Would harmonically affecting the plant leaves and stem be more affective than vibrating the roots? What about chamber physics and dimensions that the plants are housed in, any golden mean considerations? Much to consider.