You could, perhaps, pull the wool over the collective eyes of the police, but could you fool a ficus, shuck a schefflera, jive a juniper?

For 14-year-old Chloe Dunster, the question deserved investigation.

Chloe, a sharp-witted and inquisitive eighth-grader at St. Andrew’s Priory, had read a book about CIA interrogation expert Cleve Backster, who famously hooked up a lie detector to a plant with surprising results.

Backster’s claims that plants had unknown sensory abilities and that their reactions to different types of stimuli could be detected and measured captured the public’s imagination and made him a minor celebrity in the 1960s. However, lack of scientific verification left Backster’s theory to molder.

With the help of her father, Jeff, and his business partner, Darrell Fox, Chloe re-created Backster’s experiments, introducing stricter controls to produce more accurate results.

In one experiment, Chloe cut and burned a plant and recorded a noticeable spike in its stress level, which remained elevated for the rest of the night.

The next day, Jeff entered the room where the plant was located, and the plant’s stress reading remained normal. Chloe entered next, triggering a dramatic spike in the plant’s stress level.

Chloe’s conclusion: "Plants can recognize people."

And that, she says, opens the door for all sorts of interesting possibilities, including the use of plants as "witnesses" in crime investigations.

With the help of her science teacher, Chloe developed the project into one of the most attention-grabbing entries at her school’s science fair.

"I’ve learned never to underestimate kids," says Jeff Dunster. "They have no built-in limits, so when they get into something, anything is possible."

In fact, Chloe’s affinity for science and nature is something of a family trait.

Jeff Dunster is chief executive officer of Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods, which in addition to sustainably growing native hardwoods for harvest has also planted more than 200,000 trees to repopulate forests on the Big Island.

Chloe’s older sister Carlie also turned heads at the science fair with a science project that involved growing square tomatoes as a means of maximizing space for shipment.

Chloe, whose interests also include creative writing, says she intends to pursue science as a possible career.

In the meantime she has her sights set on delving even further into her plant studies with the hope of proving a most important point to her father.

"If I can prove that plants can feel, I can prove that eating vegetables is just plain cruel!"

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Check out @IncidentalLives on Twitter. Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.