普通高中课程标准实验教科书 英语选修9 Unit 4 Exploring plants

1 Before you read the text, glance quickly through it and answer these questions.
 1 What's the topic of the text?
 2 What three plants are featured?
 3 What do the photos show you?
 4 What three animal pollinators are featured?
                                                                   CO- EVOLUTION
Some plants, like the examples given below, depend on a single species of pollinator to make its seeds. Likewise, many pollinators rely on one plant species to provide all the food for their young. The kind of evolution where two species have become totally dependent on each other is called co-evolution.
The Yucca (丝兰)
The yucca moth¹ is the only animal that is the right size and shape to pollinate yucca flowers. The female moths² lay their eggs in the yucca flowers. In the process, pollen³ sticks to the moths that then carry the pollen to another flower. The moths' caterpillars⁴ (毛虫 ) eat some of the developing yucca seeds. Although the plant loses a few seeds to the caterpillars, the moths' visits to the yucca flowers ensure pollination⁵.
The Traveller's Palm
The Traveller's Palm produces large quantities of sweet nectar to attract pollinators. But the Madagascar black lemur (狐猴), a monkey-like mammal, is one of the few animals strong enough to open the flower. When it pulls the flower apart to drink the nectar, the pollen sticks to its head. Looking for more nectar, the lemur moves on to another palm, and the pollen stuck to its fur now sticks onto the new flower. So the Traveller's Palm is pollinated, and the lemur satisfies its sweet tooth.
The Ophrys Orchid⁶
Ophrys is an orchid with a flower that looks, and even smells like, a certain kind of female wasp⁷. When the male wasps⁸ come out of their pupae (蛹), they are attracted by the smell and try to mate with the flower. In doing so, they collect the pollen which is then moved to another Ophrys flower when he tries to mate with that flower. When the orchid flowers are dying, the female wasps then come out of their pupae and visit the flowers to collect a chemical, the same one to which the males were attracted earlier. The male wasps, attracted by the smell, then mate with the real females.

1 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

2 moths   

n.蛾( moth的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moths have eaten holes in my wool coat. 蛀虫将我的羊毛衫蛀蚀了几个小洞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The moths tapped and blurred at the window screen. 飞蛾在窗帘上跳来跳去，弄上了许多污点。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 pollen   

n.[植]花粉

参考例句：

• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。
• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。

4 caterpillars   

n.毛虫( caterpillar的名词复数 )；履带

参考例句：

• Caterpillars eat the young leaves of this plant. 毛毛虫吃这种植物的嫩叶。
• Caterpillars change into butterflies or moths. 毛虫能变成蝴蝶或蛾子。 来自辞典例句

5 pollination   

n.授粉

参考例句：

• The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
• Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。

6 orchid   

n.兰花，淡紫色

参考例句：

• The orchid is a class of plant which I have never tried to grow.兰花这类植物我从来没种过。
• There are over 35 000 species of orchid distributed throughout the world.有35,000多种兰花分布在世界各地。

7 wasp   

n.黄蜂，蚂蜂

参考例句：

• A wasp stung me on the arm.黄蜂蜇了我的手臂。
• Through the glass we can see the wasp.透过玻璃我们可以看到黄蜂。

8 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中