Yes CT, there really are glow-in-the-dark flowers. Why they light up the night.

The world of genetics has really had a tremendous impact on our lives. There is a lot of talk about GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, in the news. Labels even alert us to the presence of these crops in our foods.

I wanted to share a new plant called the Firefly Petunia. It was not fireflies, but mushrooms that gave this plant its ability to glow. This is known as bioluminescence in the world of biology.

Through feats of genetic engineering, a gene is taken from one organism and placed into another. This is where people become worried. Humans, however, have been doing this for hundreds of years.

The best looking or most productive organisms were bred together for the next generation. This is called selective breeding, and it essentially concentrates beneficial versions of genes in the offspring. Now what is determined to be the most beautiful is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Some people, for example, selected for white flowers in a normally purple flowered species, Echinacea purpurea. Some have even taken things a step farther and crossed different species of plants to obtain new colors of flowers. In nature, separate species have evolved isolation mechanisms to maintain their identity.

When our plant breeders force a cross of the species boundary, much of the time it was done with closely related species of plants within the same genus. A great example of this is the crossing of Echinacea purpurea, the purple cone flower, with Echinacea paradoxa, the yellow cone fl.