Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a botany class.

旁白：请听一段植物学讲座的节选片段。

Professor: Okay. Let's move on, to bacteria and viruses that can infect plants.

教授：好的。我们继续向下讲，来看看可以感染植物的细菌和病毒。

And let's start out with a virus that's rather common in various plants but first became known in connection with tulips.

我们从一种在多种植物身上很常见的病毒开始。这种病毒一开始是因为它们和郁金香的联系而出名的。

This virus can cause a change in pigmentation that dramatically affects the color of the plant's leaves or flower petals.

这种病毒可以导致郁金香颜色的变化，这种颜色变化会很大程度上影响郁金香的叶子和花瓣的颜色。

But since not all cells of the plant tissue are infected, the result tends to be color variation.

但是因为并不是全部组织都会被感染，所以结果就变成了各种各样不同的颜色。

With color intensified in one part of the flower petal and faded in another, this is called color breaking.

花瓣某个地方的颜色会很浓郁，而另一个地方的则会变淡，这就叫做颜色裂变。

And the virus that causes this in tulip is called the tulip-breaking virus.

导致郁金香出现这种裂变的病毒就叫做郁金香颜色裂变病毒。

The tulip-breaking virus is now known to have detrimental effects on plants.

我们现在知道郁金香颜色裂变病毒对于植物有不好的作用。

They're weaker and sometimes reduced in size.

它们会使得植物变得虚弱，有的时候还会导致植物的体积缩小。

But for centuries people didn't have a clue about this virus.

但是几个世纪以来，人们对于这种病毒并没有什么了解。

Not until the early 1900s was it known what caused the color breaking in tulips, what made the tulip plant produce flower petals so radically different in color or in pattern from what you would have expected.

直到20世纪早期，人们才知道，什么会导致郁金香颜色出现裂变，会让郁金香的花瓣产生颜色和图案出乎人们预料的变异。

Tulip flowers with stripes or streaks or feather or flame patterns on their petals, there is no doubt in my mind that these symptoms of this breaking virus affected human behavior too indirectly, that they set off the famous tulip craze in the Netherlands.

郁金香花瓣会带有线状、条状、羽毛状或者烟状的图案，在我的脑海里毫无疑问这些病毒所带来的症状直接影响到了人类的行为。在荷兰爆发了著名的郁金香狂热浪潮。

Let me explain.

让我来解释一下。

In the 17th century, the Netherlands was among the most important trading centers in all of Europe with lots of rich merchants who wanted to showcase their wealth, for example, by displaying exotic tulips in their private gardens.

在十七世纪，荷兰是欧洲最重要的贸易中心，有很多富裕的商人，这些商人想炫耀自己的财富，例如，通过在他们私人花园里种植异国的郁金香。

Now, tulips are not native to the Netherlands.

郁金香并不是荷兰土生土长的花朵。

They originated in the mountains of Central Asia and spread from Persia, present-day Iran, to the Turkish Ottoman Empire and from there eventually reached Europe.

它们发源于中亚的山脉，从波斯、也就是现在的伊朗传播过来，一直传播到奥斯曼土耳其帝国，最终传到了欧洲。

There's an explanation for the origin of the name “tulip”that kind of reflects this.

郁金香获得其名字的过程在一定程度上反映了这个传播的过程。

Apparently, it came from a Persian word for“turban”, you know, a cloth wound round the head.

显然，这个名字来源于一个波斯语的单词turban，你知道，这个词的意思是一条围绕脑袋的布条。

Um, a style of headgear worn by men in that part of the world.

嗯，一种帽子，那个地区的男人所带的帽子。

Well, the Ottomans used a similar name for tulips after they acquired them from Persia.

土耳其帝国的人们在从波斯得到郁金香以后，用了和turban相似的名字来称呼它。

And then, in the late 16th century, a variation on that name found its way from what is now Turkey to the Netherlands along with the plant itself.

然后，在16世纪晚期，这个名字出现了改变，这个改变从现在的土耳其地区随着郁金香本身的传播传到了荷兰。

Okay.

好的。

A tulip, of course, is typically grown from an underground bulb.

当然，一株郁金香一般是从地下的球茎里长出来的。

And although as it flowers the old bulb shrivels to almost nothing, the plant produces another large bulb and maybe two, three, four smaller ones to take its place, and while tulips take up to seven years to bloom if you start from seeds.

尽管当花开的时候，地下的球茎就枯萎得不剩下什么了，郁金香还可以结出一个新的大球茎或者三四个小球茎来替代旧的。如果是从种子开始，则需要七年的时间才能养出开花的郁金香。

A large bulb can produce a flower the very next year.

一个大的球茎可以第二年就开花。

With the smaller bulbs it takes maybe a couple of years.

小的球茎的话则可能需要几年才开花。

And since these bulbs remain viable for quite a long time, even out of the ground, they can be stored or transported long distances without much of a problem, which helps explain the spread of tulip cultivation.

因为这种球茎在很长时间都是可以开花的，即使没有被种在土里，它们也可以被储存或者运输很长距离，这些都没有什么问题。这就解释了郁金香种植的扩散。

At first, tulips were rare in the Netherlands and only for the wealthy.

最初，郁金香在荷兰很稀少，只为富人拥有。

But in the early 17th century, as more bulbs were produced there, you'd think the prices would come down.

但是在17世纪早期，随着越来越多的郁金香球茎被生产出来，你会觉得郁金香价格要下降了。

In fact, though, the popularity of some tulips increased tremendously.

实际上，郁金香的人气突然极速高涨了起来。

So demands soon far exceeded supply and their prices skyrocketed.

所以需求量飞速超过了供应量，郁金香的价格一飞冲天。

And the tulips most prized for their uniqueness and beauty were apparently the ones inflected by this mysterious virus.

而且，郁金香大多数是根据其被这种神秘病毒感染而出现颜色变异的独特性和美丽程度而定价的。

At the time, nobody was really able to breed tulips like these.

在那个时候，没有人有能力人工培育这样的郁金香。

Color breaking happened in just two or three out of a hundred bulbs and seemingly just by chance.

在一百多球茎里，发生颜色裂变的只有两三个，这看起来就像是偶然出现的。

And since you didn't really know when you bought a bulb if the colors would break, well, Dutch speculators invested hand over fist and drove prices sky high.

因为我们并不能知道你会买到颜色发生变异的郁金香，荷兰的投资者就迅速地争相投资郁金香，把价格炒的巨高。

Some bulbs, even while still in the ground, were sold for as much as you would pay for a house at the time.

一些球茎，甚至在还埋在地下的时候，就可以卖到当时一座房子的价格。

But the huge speculative bubble created by this tulip craze eventually collapsed.

但是这个巨大的郁金香泡沫最终还是破灭了。

And when the prices fell, that wiped out a lot of fortunes almost overnight.

郁金香价格迅速下跌，一夜之间抹去了大量的财富。

Later on, tulip breeders learned to duplicate color breaking in healthy, uninfected plants, so the spectacular-looking tulips so common today are the result not of chance viral infections, but of carefully controlled breeding.

后来，郁金香的养育者学会了怎么在健康、没有感染病毒的郁金香上培育裂变的颜色，所以我们今天很容易看到的壮观郁金香并不是偶然病毒感染的结果，而是仔细控制下人工培育的结果。