Plant blindness. That’s what scientists call the way we humans often fail to notice the staggering diversity and complexity of plant life around us. The philosopher Paco Calvo seems to be mercifully free from this affliction – he runs a laboratory in Spain studying plant behaviour, trying to figure out if that half-dead fern that you forgot to water on the windowsill ought to be classified as “intelligent”.

Some flowers turn towards the sun as it tracks across the sky, and some plants close their leaves when touched, but traits like these are generally assumed to be automatic reflexes, no different to the way your leg jerks out when you get tapped on the knee.

In Planta Sapiens, Calvo tries to show us that our green friends do far more than just blindly react. He believes they “plan ahead to achieve goals” and “proactively engage with their surroundings”, as they grapple with gradual changes in the soil or the sudden appearance of a predator.

In a way, that shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, plants evolved in the same unpredictable world as we did and, like us, need to be able to respond to changing circumstances to survive.

Scientists have known for a long time that plants can communicate with one another using chemical compounds and it’s also been long understood that they use electrical signals (much like animals) to coordinate their internal response to the world around them.

Calvo describes more sophisticated examples of plant behaviour; how some plants seem to “remember” previous droughts, for example, conserving water more effectively than plants that have never encountered long dry spells. Or how some behave differently when competing for resources against other species, rather than their own kind.

However, proving that these behaviours are evidence of cognition, rather than being automatic reflex responses, albeit impressive ones, is a tough hurdle to clear and Calvo doesn’t quite make it over.

But merely posing the question makes this book part of a wider movement, beginning with Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975) and including Frans de Waal’s pioneering Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (2016) and Peter Godfrey-Smith’s masterly Other Minds (2016), which challenges anthropocentric ideas about intelligence, suggesting it’s not a uniquely human trait.

This is perhaps the most significant intellectual shift happening today, opening up the possibility that we can radically realign our relationship to the natural world. Instead of blithely thinking that we’re somehow superior to – and separate from – the animals and plants around us, we might start to appreciate that we’re deeply and irrevocably connected to these fragile ecosystems.

Simply by being part of this philosophical sea change, Planta Sapiens is an important book, if not especially compelling. It does contain some interesting vignettes. I had no idea, for instance, that the smell of freshly cut grass comes from the chemicals released by the wounded plant to warn nearby grasses to mobilise their defences. At least now I have an excuse for not mowing the lawn: I don’t want to hurt its feelings.

The most intriguing nugget is about mimosa plants, which close their leaves when they’re touched so as to protect themselves from predators. It turns out that some mimosas are quick to close up, while others are slower, which suggests, claims Calvo (without being all that convincing), that individual plants have different “personalities”.

But as fascinating as these titbits are, you have to cut through reams of deadwood about the author’s career to reach them. It’s a shame. This subject deserves writing that fills the reader with a sense of wonder, encouraging us to think of ourselves as part of an intricate, intelligent biosphere that encompasses flora and fauna alike.

This isn’t that book. But the good news is that anyone who wants to be enthralled by plant behaviour can tune into the BBC’s sublime recent series The Green Planet. Sir David Attenborough’s closing monologue deserves to be heard far and wide: “Our relationship with plants has changed throughout history and now it must change again. If we do this, our future will be healthier, safer and happier. Plants are our most ancient allies and together we can make this an even greener planet.”

You don’t have to be as smart as a houseplant to see the wisdom in those words.

• Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence by Paco Calvo with Natalie Lawrence is published by Little, Brown (£22). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply