Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1915 — LUMINOSITY IN NATURE [ARTICLE]

LUMINOSITY IN NATURE

MANY INSECTS AND PLANTS HAVE LIGHT-GIVING POWER. Lightning Meet Popular Among Pyrotechnic Insects —Australian Poppy la the Most Remarkable of Lumlnoue Plants. The lightning bug’s mystery of light without heat Is now alleged to be solved. A member of that earnestheaded colony of scientists at Woods Hole, Mass, has recently declared that the bug does its interior and exterior illumination by eating certain substances which supply it with phosphorus. It is to be hoped that this is true so we may quit worrying about why -the ligthning bug is lit up. Although the lightning bug is our most popular and common pyrotechnic insect, there are many other insects and many forms of vegetable life which share in light-giving power of high and low degree. Under certain conditions nasturtiums, dahlias, tuberoses and yellow lilies may be seen to glow with a bright radiance, varying in color and intensity. Only those flowers that have an abundance of yellow or orange shades exhibit this phosphorescence. The best time to see the light is after dark, when the atmosphere is clear and dry. The light is sometimes steady, but often Intermittent and flashing. Often, in the early fall, the ground will be Illuminated by the glow from the dead leaves. The Australian poppy is the most remarkable of all the luminous plants, for it has been found to send out a light of its own of quite notable brilliancy. Mushrooms growing on decayed wood often have a degree of brilliancy that, when they are placed on a newspaper, will enable one to read the words in their vicinity with no other light. One species of mushroom in Australia, 16 inches in diameter, was of such brilliancy that, when seen from a distance, its light frightened the natives. Crabs are notable light givers, and the salpa of California is the most wonderful of all. Bodies of water 20 miles square have been seen glowing with them, and in Santa Catalina channel one naturalist reported that as far as the eye could see the creatures lay gleaming like gems In the sunlight. Many luminous frogs have been discovered from time to time, and any frog may be made luminous by inoculating it with certain bacteria which produce this phenomenon. Many theories have been brought forward to explain the phenomenon of luminosity, but as yet little is known about it.