鲜花祖

1. 地球上第一朵花长什么样子

花自古便被人类视为美的象征，世上有成千上万种花卉，但从来没人知道地球上第一朵花到底是怎样。欧洲生物学家日前用计算机模拟出世界上第一朵花的模样，看来就像白莲花和白百合的结合体。

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."

英国伯明翰大学的杰森•希尔顿博士没有参加这项研究，他称：“鲜花始祖的结构和组织依然还是个谜。例如，我们不知道最古老的花朵是单性的还是双性的，或是依靠风还是昆虫授粉。”

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.

为了重现世上第一朵鲜花的外观，科学家记录了792种现存花卉的花瓣、萼片等外形特征。

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.

他们将这些特征分布绘制成开花植物的进化树，从而重现花卉在关键的进化节点上的样貌，其中就包括所有现存花卉的最后一个共同祖先的样子。

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.

第一朵鲜花被重构成齿轮状排列的花瓣状结构，像一朵常见的百合（但花瓣更多），所有花瓣出现在同一个平面里，而非像莲花一样花瓣围绕花茎重叠呈螺旋状排列。

"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.

埃尔韦•索凯说：“关于鲜花始祖特征的一些研究结果让我们感到意外，特别是它的器官(如萼片、花瓣、雄蕊)可能是齿轮状排列的，而并非是人们通常认为的螺旋状”。

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.

花的性进化一直备受争议，鲜花可以是单性或双性的。这项研究推断花卉祖先是两性的，同时拥有雄性和雌性器官。

"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.

杰森•希尔顿说。“这项研究意义重大，因为它告诉我们鲜花始祖可能有多复杂，现在研究者正努力在化石中搜寻它或此类东西。只有时间和进一步研究才能证明，这个鲜花始祖模型是否正确。”

英文来源：BBC

2. 用鲜花代替烧纸的好处是什么

清明时节，家家户户都要上坟扫墓，这是我国的传统文化，是后代感恩先祖的一种表达方式。清明祭祖，一方面可以慎终追远，追思哀悼，表达孝思；另一方面还可以借此教育后代，继承和发扬先祖的优良传统，以树新风、讲理想、颂美德。
然而，用香烛、鞭炮祭奠祖先的方式不仅污染环境，一旦引发火灾更是得不偿失。这些传统的祭奠陋习已失去了寄托哀思的本意，不仅与传统美德相悖，也与社会主义精神文明格格不入，早就该叫停。祭祖重在用心，表达哀思，感悟生命，传递孝道文化正能量，这才是清明的意义所在。眼下，鲜花祭祖已在不少地方得到了推崇，值得我们去学习。
提倡用鲜花祭祖好处多多。一是鲜花环保，没有污染，能保护空气的洁净。二是鲜花安全，烧香、燃放鞭炮容易引发森林火灾。君不见，每年的清明，因为烧纸钱、燃放鞭炮引发森林火灾，使植被遭到严重破坏，伤痕累累。燃放鞭炮、烧纸钱的传统陋习必须革除，只有保护好森林才能保护好我们的生存环境。三是鲜花的娇艳美丽，更能表达我们祭祀祖先的心意。同时，也让我们自己明白生命就像鲜花一样娇嫩，我们要好好的珍惜眼前的时光，珍惜父母、亲人、师长、友人相聚的日子。
善待环境，请鲜花祭祖，文明祭祀。
若满意，请采纳，谢谢~