1 . In 1986, when he was only a prince. King Charles told a television interviewer that it was important to talk to plants. He was widely laughed at. But his wisdom seems to have been ahead of its time, for there is now plenty of evidence that plants can detect (察觉) sound, react to it, and even perhaps produce it.
Scientists have been experimenting with playing sounds to plants since at least the 1960s, during which time they have been exposed to everything from Beethoven to Michael Jackson. Over the years, evidence that this sort of thing can have an effect has been growing. One paper, published in 2018, announced that an Asian plant grew much larger leaves when exposed to 56 days of Buddhist chants — but not if it was exposed to Western pop music, or silence. Another, published last year, found that plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered slow growth, and produced a range of stress compounds (成分).
Another research reports that certain frequencies (频率), played in some environments like greenhouses, can affect seed growth and even improve crop production. And plants can make noises, too. Earlier this year a group of researchers at Tel Aviv University published an article in Cell Press, reporting that several plants gave out different noises in response to different stresses — although not at the sorts of frequencies that humans can hear. Humans can only hear frequencies of up to 16 kilohertz. Scientists discovered sounds given out by plants were up to 250 kilohertz.
If all that sounds strange, perhaps it should not. After all, sound carries useful information.
From an evolutionary point of view, there is no reason to expect that information to be applied only by animals.
1. What was most people’s attitude to Charles’ opinion?| A．Unclear. | B．Positive. | C．Cautious. | D．Negative. |
| A．Different sounds have different effects on plants. |
| B．Buddhist chants don’t make a difference to plants. |
| C．Western pop music does good to plants’ growth. |
| D．The noise of traffic produces stress compounds. |
| A．The sounds are strange. | B．The plants grow in greenhouses. |
| C．The plants are under great stress. | D．The sounds are at high frequencies. |
| A．It’s the important to talk to plants. |
| B．Sounds make a difference to plants. |
| C．Plants can discover and even make sound. |
| D．Humans can’t hear sounds produced by plants. |
