Reading the article it looks like we do know why: > Neurons... transfer information about sensation and motion from peripheral parts of the body to the brain a

Reading the article it looks like we do know why: > Neurons... transfer information about sensation and motion from peripheral parts of the body to the brain and back. By sending electro-chemical signals in the form of atomic ions, neurons can communicate great distances through the body... Most of this information is passed as sodium ions — atom-sized charged particles that pass through channels to zap from one neuron to the other. Lidocaine, a local anesthetic commonly used by dentists, blocks these sodium channels, stopping neurons from sending information to each other. That’s why they make your mouth numb, the neurons there can’t send pain sensations to your brain. They’re stopped. > ...they [Plants] do pass information from cell to cell just like we do, via ion channels. That’s probably where lidocaine does its work in plants, blocking these channels and cutting off communication. That’s why the hair cells in the Venus flytrap can’t tell the motor cells to contract, there’s no signal being passed between them. And ether works by blocking cell membranes in both plants and animals. I think there are some specifics about how organisms with cell walls are blocked by ether - but that's more of a "how?" rather than a "why?" In summary: even though plants don't have nervous systems like animals, their motor functions are still ultimately controlled by ion channels with are blocked (or their cell membranes are blocked, thus blocking the ion channel) by certain anesthetics. This post (of all things) seems to be rate limited: > Sorry, I'm confused. What's the difference between "how" and "why" here? We know the cause and effect behind why anesthesia works in plants: plants' motor functions are controlled by ion channels, and anesthetics block those ion channels. We know that Lidocaine blocks the sodium channels themselves, and that ether seems to block the entire cell membrane. The remaining unknown is how ether blocks the cell walls in plants. In short the answer to why anesthetics works in plants is known: because it blocks ion channels. Saying we don't know how anesthetics work in plants is sort of like saying we don't know how asymmetric encryption works because we still haven't solved whether P = NP. There exist remaining unknowns, but we do have an understanding of why it works.