NPR greets springtime with flowers that show their brightest color (a fluorescent green) after the sun goes down, thanks to genetic modification that makes these petunias glow in the dark like jellyfish or mushrooms:
The petunia with bright, white flowers looks like something you’d buy in spring at a garden nursery. But, when the lights are turned out, the petals slowly start lighting up with a greenish, white glow. The plant is always glowing, it’s just our eyes that need to adjust to see the light. The newest buds are the brightest and punctuate the glowing flowers.
“That’s why we call it the Firefly Petunia. Because these bright buds resemble fireflies sitting on top of the plant.,” [pharmaceutical researcher Keith] Wood explained.
And despite its name, this plant doesn’t have any firefly genes, rather four genes from a bioluminescent mushroom and a fifth from a fungi.
“The first gene takes a metabolite and turns it into an intermediate,” Wood explained, “The second gene takes the intermediate and turns it into the actual fuel for the bioluminescence. The third gene is what actually makes the light. And then the last gene takes the product from the light reaction and recycles it back to the starting point.”
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It took about 10 years to go from development to approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture last fall.
The plants went on sale online in February and the first ones were shipped out this week.
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You can get the Firefly Petunias here, at light.bio.