Chinese scientists engineered glow-in-the-dark plants: Can they replace you night lamp?

Scientists in China have created rainbow, glow-in-the-dark succulents by injecting colorful “afterglow” particles into the leaves that absorb and then gradually release, light.

Plants were first engineered to glow in 1986, when researchers at the University of California San Diego transferred a firefly gene into tobacco plants.

More types of plants now glow, such as the firefly petunia that went on the market last year, thanks to the insertion of fungal genes that bestow luminescence. However, engineered plants’ glows range in color only from yellowish green to greenish blue.

Taking a different tack, a team at the South China Agricultural University injected six plant species, including the popular succulent Echeveria, with micron-size bits of phosphor, called “afterglow particles,” that temporarily luminesce green after exposure to white light.

The particles glowed the brightest and most evenly in Echeveria because the injected fluid diffused throughout each leaf, the team published their findings in The Journal of Matter on August 27, 2025.

Further injections of Echeveria with other kinds of afterglow particles created light of additional colors, depending mainly on the chemical composition of the particles.

Could it be an alternate to your night lamp?

These plants are no Burning bushes: The illumination is equivalent to a small nightlight and drops off after 10 minutes.

That said, throughout the 10-day experiment, the phosphor-laden leaves could be regularly recharged by white light, just like glow - in the dark stickers.

One difficulty for growers, compared with planting transgenic seeds, is that each leaf must be injected individually.

Succulents like Echeveria are difficult to genetically modify, so the approach could expand the range of decorative glowing plants.