【英语时差8,16】绿色植物能预知未来？

（单词翻译）

 The scientists guessed that the new seedlings¹ were sensing the presence of neighboring plants by detecting the characteristic color of light reflected sideways from leaves of the neighboring plants. That characteristic color contains a very small amount of red light and a larger amount of what is known to botanists² as far-red light. To test their guess, the scientists in effect blinded some new seedlings to that far-red light by placing clear blue cylinders³ around their stems. The accelerated growth was reduced or abolished. This striking result suggests that light scattered⁴ sideways from adjacent leaves provides an early signal of competition to young green plants. The young plants react to the signal by accelerating their stem growth to get a head start in the race for light.