世界上第一支"蓝色" 玫瑰即将登陆美国

Long a symbol of the unattainable, blue roses will be for sale this fall in the United States and Canada.

很长一段时间，蓝色的玫瑰都被认为是不可能出现的神话，但是这个秋天蓝色玫瑰就要在美国和加拿大上市了。

Named “Applause,” the rose is genetically modified to synthesize delphinidin, a pigment found in most blue flowers. The rose was first released in in Tokyo in 2009, after 20 years of research by Suntory, a Japanese company that also distills whisky, and its Australian subsidiary, Florigene (now Suntory Flowers). Today Suntory announced the rose will be for sale at select florists in North America, beginning early November. While the flower might appear more silver-purple than sky-blue, Applause is the nearest to a true blue rose yet.

经过了转基因实验后，这种名为“喝彩”的玫瑰可以自己合成飞燕草色素---一种存在于大多数蓝色花朵中的色素。这种玫瑰最初于2009年在东京问世，是Suntroy---一家同时做提纯威士忌生意的日本公司---和它在澳大利亚的附属公司Florigene(现在名为Suntory Flowers)，20年的研究成果。如今Suntory宣布这种玫瑰将在11月初于北美特定的花店开始出售。虽然这花看上去还是更像亮紫色而不是天蓝色，但它已经是目前为止世界上最接近蓝色的玫瑰了。

Arguably the world's best loved flowers, humans have cultivated roses for more than 5,000 years. Roses can signify love, beauty, politics and war.

玫瑰可能是世界上最受喜爱的花，已经有5000多年的培育历史了。玫瑰意味着爱，美丽，政治和战争。

Blue roses have a mythic quality because they, until recently, were impossible to grow. Roses appear naturally in many shades of red, pink, yellow and white, but lack the natural ability to produce blue pigments. For centuries, blue roses have conjured unrequited love or the quest for the impossible.

蓝色玫瑰之所以有如此的神话色彩是因为，直到最近，才有人种植出来。天然的玫瑰有很多颜色，比如红色、粉色、黄色和白色，但是就是缺少生成蓝色素的能力。几个世纪以来，蓝色玫瑰都被用来描述一厢情愿的感情或是不可能被同意的请求。

Blue roses traditionally available through florists have been white roses dyed blue. Suntory and Florigene achieved the blue color inserting a delphinidin-producing gene from a pansy into an Old Garden ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ rose. When debuting in Japan, Applause was sold for 10 times the price of normal roses.

传统在花店中卖的蓝色玫瑰都是白色玫瑰染了蓝色而已。而Suntory 和 Florigene这次是把从三色紫罗兰中提取的飞燕草合成素基因片段加入了一种"老德黎塞留"玫瑰。“喝彩”最初在日本上市的时候，售价是普通玫瑰价格的10倍。