By Susan Milius
Flowers such as four-o’clocks and portulacas invented the fluorescent look long before the psychedelic 1960s with its black light posters, new research shows.
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These species rank as the first flowers found to fluoresce naturally in people’s visible-light range, says Fernando Gandía-Herrero of the University of Murcia in Spain. Some other plant pigments emit fluorescent light in the ultraviolet range.