From science fiction to your living room: Scientists grow glow-in-the-dark succulents

As scientific developments continue to shape our everyday lives, some include developing new types of species, be it in terms of fauna or flora, as scientists have managed to engineer glow-in-the-dark succulent plants that shine in a rainbow of colors.

Indeed, researchers, led by Xuejie Zhang, a materials scientist at the South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, China, have created succulents that glow in the dark, turning ordinary houseplants into rechargeable night-lights, as described in the journal Matter on August 27.

Now, all the regular types of succulents have competition in the form of these luminescent succulent plants, specifically Echevaria ‘Mebina’, a common houseplant that grows rosettes of dense, fleshy leaves, which the scientists have injected with phosphor particles.

How glow-in-the-dark succulents work

As it happens, the luminescence, created in a ten-minute injection process, is in hues of blue-green, blue-violet, red, green, and white, can last up to 120 minutes after exposing the plant to customized wavelengths of light or sunlight, and could be triggered repeatedly over the 10 days of the study’s duration. 

Additionally, the cost of materials to create one plant is $1.40, as the scientists estimate, which could make them a very popular decoration or gift everywhere. In the future, the team hopes to move away from having to inject each leaf separately by using smaller particles, but this currently leads to a dimmer glow.

Meanwhile, other popular, yet more traditional plant species include corpse flowers, which are under threat of extinction due to various factors, including habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species encroachment, and, more recently discovered, incomplete historical records.

Testifying to the corpse flower’s popularity is the presence of over 20,000 visitors witnessing the first blooming of the corpse flower in 15 years in the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, Australia, earlier this year, as only an estimated 162 individual corpse flowers remain in the wild.