Glow-in-the-dark plants to replace streetlights? Forget it
The brightest and most colourful glowing plants yet have been created by injecting phosphorescent chemicals directly into the leaves, but it is little more than a cheap gimmick
By Michael Le Page
27 August 2025
These succulent plants glow after being infused with phosphor particles that absorb and slowly release light
Liu et al., Matter
There are the bad product ideas that just make you sigh, and then there are the ones you absolutely loathe. For me, glowing plants created by pumping leaves full of phosphorescent chemicals fall firmly in the latter category.
Such plants have been created by researchers from South China Agricultural University, who claim in a study published today that the plants have “unprecedented brightness” and are a step towards “sustainable, eco-friendly, plant-based lighting systems”.
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People have been trying to create glowing plants for decades. The big challenge is making the glow bright enough for our eyes to see. A 2013 Kickstarter project raised nearly half a million dollars, but failed to deliver.
Last year, US biotech company Light Bio launched the Firefly Petunia, the first genetically modified glowing plant to go on sale commercially. It claims that the plant’s brightness is “similar to moonlight”, but judging from photos on social media, we aren’t talking a full moon here.
There is a reason why this is so difficult. Plants get their energy from light, but photosynthesis is wildly inefficient. It is estimated that most plants capture less than 2 per cent of the light that falls on them, and they need some of this captured energy to survive and grow. That leaves precious little to convert back into light.
