1 . Baseball Plant
Where it's found: South Africa
This is a ball-shaped juicy plant. Unluckily, it was unsustainably harvested because more people around the globe have decided to grow baseball plants around them. Luckily, some botanical gardens have started to grow this plant. In this way, it will no longer need to be obtained from the wild so that it does not become extinct.
Corpse Flower
Where it's found: Sumatra, Indonesia
The corpse flower is also listed as an endangered plant and there are about 1, 000 plants growing in the wild. This plant sends out a smell of rotting(腐烂)meat during its nightly peak bloom. This allows it to attract pollinators like flies from miles away. It can grow an astonishing eight feet tall and can weigh up to 170 pounds.
African Starfish Flower
Where it's found: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Don't fall in love with its beautiful flowers, because this is yet another plant that's known for its bad smell. It smells like rotting meat and looks like a rotting animal! Unluckily, it is endangered due to destroyed habitats, plant collectors as well as the Zulus, who use the plant as a cure for hysteria(癔病).
Hydnora Africana
Where it's found: Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Ethiopia
This has an appearance similar to mushroom until the flower opens. At this point, the plant transforms from a leafless brown-gray plant to something that looks more like an animal than a plant. While this is also a smelly plant, it is an edible(可食用的)fruit that is loved by many animals and even humans! It makes for a tasty food when mixed with cream and can also treat conditions like diarrhea(腹泻).
1. What can be inferred about the baseball plant?A.It gives out a bad smell. | B.Its flowers have a strange shape. |
C.It is a kind of food for the locals. | D.It is endangered in its wild habitat. |
A.South Africa. | B.Botswana. | C.Indonesia. | D.Ethiopia. |
A.They have great sizes. |
B.They can be used as drugs. |
C.They look like rotting animals. |
D.They change shapes to keep away enemies. |
2 . Students at Beijing’ s Yucai High School have to be very careful when playing football on the school’ s field. That’ s because there is a 100- year-old tree growing in the middle of it. And keeping their eye on the ball too much can result in a painful collision.
Building a football field around a tree sounds pretty stupid. But the school had no choice. It’ s reported that there are historic buildings all around Yucai High School, and this was the only space that could be used for a football field. Before starting working on the field, the school did ask to have the tree moved and planted somewhere else. However, they were told that it was hundreds of years old, and that it was a national treasure.
Having it moved and planted somewhere else was too risky—they might damage or kill the tree. So they were 1eft with no choice but to build the field around it.
Interestingly, Yucai High School is built on the grounds of Beijing’s Royal Gardens of the Ming and Qing dynasties. A reporter for the Beijing News believes that the strangely- located tree is the oldest tree in the Chinese capital. That information has not been checked, but other people think the tree is only 100 years old.
Playing a serious game of football on this field cannot be very pleasant. The tree could“catch” the ball and change its direction from time to time. But the students have no choice but to train on the playground with the tree. Luckily, they can play on a different field in competitions with other schools.
1. If students play football on the school field,________.A.they might run into a tree | B.they will have a good chance of winning |
C.they will fall down more often | D.they can control the ball all the time |
A.Because the tree was as old as the school. |
B.Because the school could only use that place. |
C.Because students in the school liked the tree. |
D.Because the tree had something to do with the city’s history. |
A.Because there was no other place for the tree. |
B.Because it may have been dangerous for the tree and it might have died. |
C.Because the tree was too big to be moved. |
D.Because it was more meaningful to keep the tree where it was. |
A.It’s the oldest tree in the Chinese capital. |
B.It was planted in Ming Dynasty. |
C.Some believe it is only one-hundred years old. |
D.Students will play on another field to protect it. |
3 . Plenty of harvests of corn and other major crops rely on a mysterious phenomenon known as hybrid vigor (杂交活力). When highly naturally-born varieties are crossed, their next generations are taller, hardier, and bear more grain, Researchers report that this vigor is somehow influenced by microbes (微生物) in the soil, perhaps through a plant's immune system .
Charles Darwin was one of the first researchers to describe hybrid vigor. In the early 20th century, biologists began to apply this effect to agriculture by creating naturally-born parent plants that produced hybrid seeds. By the 1940s, almost every farmer in the United States was planting hybrid corn, and the harvests multiplied.
Biologists have proposed several theories about the cause of hybrid vigor, but no definitive explanation has emerged.
Maggie Wagner, plant biologist at the University of Kansas, and her colleagues wondered whether microbes might be it involved. Last year, Wagner and her colleagues found an interesting clue in a field study. They discovered that the leaves and roots of hybrid corn had microbial communities that are different from those living on naturally-born varieties of corn. “Something about being a hybrid makes a plant interact differently with microbes,” Wagner says. It could be that the naturally-born corn's immune systems react more actively to beneficial microbes, compromising their growth. Alternatively, hybrid plants may be better able to defend against weak pathogens (病原体) in the soil.
Wagner says the finding highlights the need for plant growers to match the hybrid crops to the microbial communities with which they live. The findings help scientists realize the importance of understanding the role of soil microbes in making agriculture more productive and sustainable, “This holds great promise.”
1. How did people use the effect of hybrid vigor in agriculture?A.By producing naturally-born parent plants that bore hybrid seeds. |
B.By creating naturally-born parent lines that produced hybrid vigor. |
C.By providing more microbes communities that could produce more seeds. |
D.By looking for hybrid parent plants in the field that produced hybrid seeds. |
A.Hybrid plants react worse to weak pathogens in the soil. |
B.Wagner connected hybrid vigor with microbial communities. |
C.Being naturally-born makes a plant interact differently with microbes. |
D.Hybrid corn and naturally-born corn have similar microbial communities. |
A.Making farmers know what to grow to resist certain diseases |
B.Helping scientist realize the importance of spreading soil microbes. |
C.Showing the significance of associating soil microbes with specific crops. |
D.Highlighting the need for plant growers to find more microbial communities. |
A.Hybrid corn: a double-edged sword |
B.How can farmers grow hybrid crops? |
C.Hybrid vigor: a mysterious phenomenon |
D.What role do soil microbes play in the harvests of corn? |
4 . Country diary: a chainsaw massacre in the alder woods
On an overcast, drizzly afternoon at Durham Wildlife Trust’s low Barns nature
A tree had been felled and sawn into
When this reserve was established half a century ago, around old gravel pits (采沙场), some moisture-loving alders were planted to help
There is also an important natural alder wood here, created by a cataclysm almost two and a half centuries ago, which led to the designation of the reserve as a site of special scientific interest.
The Great Flood of 1771
When it sometimes floods, this tangle of gnarled(苍劲嶙峋的) trees has a
Sadly, since the mid-1990s, another
A.reserve | B.preserve | C.conserve | D.deserve |
A.scene | B.view | C.scope | D.landscape |
A.logs | B.materials | C.resources | D.sources |
A.Everlastingly | B.Eventually | C.Continually | D.Sustainably |
A.assemble | B.present | C.overcast | D.resemble |
A.rejuvenate | B.revenge | C.reform | D.remain |
A.gone through | B.got through | C.swept through | D.cut through |
A.changed | B.shifted | C.reversed | D.revised |
A.clue | B.plot | C.evidence | D.hint |
A.opportunities | B.possibilities | C.alternatives | D.probabilities |
A.schemed | B.crawled | C.bounced | D.scattered |
A.misfortune | B.catastrophe | C.setback | D.adversity |
A.unique | B.peculiar | C.especial | D.particular |
A.frontier | B.territory | C.habitat | D.boundary |
A.various | B.versatile | C.multiple | D.diverse |