鮮花祖

1. 地球上第一朵花長什麼樣子

花自古便被人類視為美的象徵，世上有成千上萬種花卉，但從來沒人知道地球上第一朵花到底是怎樣。歐洲生物學家日前用計算機模擬出世界上第一朵花的模樣，看來就像白蓮花和白百合的結合體。

Dr Jason Hilton from the University of Birmingham, UK, who was not
involved in the study, said: "The structure and organization of the
ancestral flower has remained enigmatic. For instance, we don't know if
the oldest flowers were unisexual or bisexual, or if they were
pollinated by wind or insects."

英國伯明翰大學的傑森•希爾頓博士沒有參加這項研究，他稱：「鮮花始祖的結構和組織依然還是個謎。例如，我們不知道最古老的花朵是單性的還是雙性的，或是依靠風還是昆蟲授粉。」

To reconstruct the appearance of the first flower, the scientists
recorded the features - such as the petals and sepals - of the flowers
from 792 living species.

為了重現世上第一朵鮮花的外觀，科學家記錄了792種現存花卉的花瓣、萼片等外形特徵。

They mapped the distribution of these features on to the evolutionary
tree of flowering plants enabling them to build a picture of what
flowers looked like at key points in their history - including the last
common ancestor of all living flowers.

他們將這些特徵分布繪製成開花植物的進化樹，從而重現花卉在關鍵的進化節點上的樣貌，其中就包括所有現存花卉的最後一個共同祖先的樣子。

The first flower is reconstructed with petal-like structures arranged
in a whorl, so each petal appears in the same plane, like a common lily
(but with more whorls), rather than in a spiral, where petals overlap
in a spiral arrangement around the stem, like a lotus.

第一朵鮮花被重構成齒輪狀排列的花瓣狀結構，像一朵常見的百合（但花瓣更多），所有花瓣出現在同一個平面里，而非像蓮花一樣花瓣圍繞花莖重疊呈螺旋狀排列。

"For some of the features we studied, the result was surprising,
especially the fact that organs (such as sepals and petals and the
stamens) were probably arranged in whorls instead of spirals, as
commonly assumed for the ancestral flower," said Hervé Sauquet.

埃爾韋•索凱說：「關於鮮花始祖特徵的一些研究結果讓我們感到意外，特別是它的器官(如萼片、花瓣、雄蕊)可能是齒輪狀排列的，而並非是人們通常認為的螺旋狀」。

Sex evolution in flowers has been highly debated. Flowers can be
unisexual or bisexual and this study infers a bisexual early flower with
both male and female organs.

花的性進化一直備受爭議，鮮花可以是單性或雙性的。這項研究推斷花卉祖先是兩性的，同時擁有雄性和雌性器官。

"This study is important as it tells us how complicated the ancestral
flower is likely to be - now the search is on to find it or something
closely resembling it in the fossil record. That's if the model is
correct - only time (and further study) will tell," said Jason Hilton.

傑森•希爾頓說。「這項研究意義重大，因為它告訴我們鮮花始祖可能有多復雜，現在研究者正努力在化石中搜尋它或此類東西。只有時間和進一步研究才能證明，這個鮮花始祖模型是否正確。」

英文來源：BBC

2. 用鮮花代替燒紙的好處是什麼

清明時節，家家戶戶都要上墳掃墓，這是我國的傳統文化，是後代感恩先祖的一種表達方式。清明祭祖，一方面可以慎終追遠，追思哀悼，表達孝思；另一方面還可以藉此教育後代，繼承和發揚先祖的優良傳統，以樹新風、講理想、頌美德。
然而，用香燭、鞭炮祭奠祖先的方式不僅污染環境，一旦引發火災更是得不償失。這些傳統的祭奠陋習已失去了寄託哀思的本意，不僅與傳統美德相悖，也與社會主義精神文明格格不入，早就該叫停。祭祖重在用心，表達哀思，感悟生命，傳遞孝道文化正能量，這才是清明的意義所在。眼下，鮮花祭祖已在不少地方得到了推崇，值得我們去學習。
提倡用鮮花祭祖好處多多。一是鮮花環保，沒有污染，能保護空氣的潔凈。二是鮮花安全，燒香、燃放鞭炮容易引發森林火災。君不見，每年的清明，因為燒紙錢、燃放鞭炮引發森林火災，使植被遭到嚴重破壞，傷痕累累。燃放鞭炮、燒紙錢的傳統陋習必須革除，只有保護好森林才能保護好我們的生存環境。三是鮮花的嬌艷美麗，更能表達我們祭祀祖先的心意。同時，也讓我們自己明白生命就像鮮花一樣嬌嫩，我們要好好的珍惜眼前的時光，珍惜父母、親人、師長、友人相聚的日子。
善待環境，請鮮花祭祖，文明祭祀。
若滿意，請採納，謝謝~