(歌词)  (lyrics)

奥拉AURA

我永远爱着马缨花，无论是在幻影牧场还是在其它地方，我也爱那些蝴蝶。我从来都不知道这些花是用什么来吸引它们,直到我1991年遇到了玛莎·维斯,一个加州大学研究生,她告诉我她给《自然》杂志写了一篇文章，讲到不仅这些花,世界各地不同门类的花，包括至少20%的虫媒授粉的植物,都会呈现颜色的变化,彷佛再说：嘿,来吧,花蜜已经准备好了。她描述了她的实验，蝴蝶幼仔脱离父母，同时接触到红色和黄色马缨丹的，但很快它们就发现成熟的红马缨丹提供的花蜜不如年轻的黄花多，结果它们很快就开始集中在黄色的花上。不仅如此，植物看起来也同样聪明，较老的花朵会盛开一段时间，呈现出更引人注目的色彩景观，从而吸引蝴蝶，不然蝴蝶可能会去找颜色更鲜艳的花朵。她说，鸟类、蝙蝠和蜜蜂都遵循同样的学习曲线。当授粉的时候，植物基本都会披上更迷人的外衣。
I’ve loved Lantana flowers forever, whether at Phantom or wherever, and the butterflies that love them too. But I never realized what was going on with the flowers to attract them until I met Martha Weiss, a University of California grad student in 1991, and she told me about what she’d written up for a scientific mag called Nature about how not just these flowers, but flowers from many different plant families from around the world, including at least 20 percent of all animal-pollinated plants, present color changes that say, hey, come-on, the nectar is ready. She described how baby butterflies she separated from their parents for her experiment go to both red and yellow lantana, but soon learn that mature red lantana doesn’t offer as much nectar as the younger yellow flowers, with the result they soon start to concentrate on the yellow. Not just that, but the plants seem equally clever because by retaining the older blossoms for a while, they present a more dramatic dash of color on the landscape, and so attract butterflies that otherwise might go to something more colorful. She said birds, bats, and bees all follow the same learning curve. The plants basically put on a more enticing dress when it’s time to, you know, get pollinated.