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Fluorescent Flora

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Well, Luminescence really but I liked the alliteration.

Would there be any reason or mechanic why plants may develop that glow in the dark? Ideally they would do so in response to stimulus such as touch, but continual or periodic glowing would also be acceptable.

Is there a plausible mechanism through which they both could develop the ability and have an evolutionary reason to do so. Most of the reasons why animals do it (such as distracting predators, luring in food, or attracting a mate) do not apply to plants.

I know we've genetically engineered plants to glow through bioluminescence, but I'm not aware of any cases where they have naturally developed the idea. Really I'm looking for a scenario where a "glowing forest" (or at least some glowing plants within a forest) could evolve naturally and be relatively widespread on a world.

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/11435. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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