Numerous studies have been reported that night light has negative effects on daily human life and animals. Limited information exists, however, concerning the effects of potentially increasing global night light intensity on plants. We hypothesized that the constant increase of the night light intensity in urban area may have substantial effects on the growth of street plants. In the present study, 6 commonly used street shrubs in Guangzhou, south China were be selected to treat with 2 supplemental night light intensities (1 and 10 μmol·m-2·s-1), and the effects of modeled night street light on plant growth and leaf morphology were investigated. The results showed that night light significantly impacted six shrubs, and the responses of the tested parameters somewhat differed from six species. In general, night light caused an increase in leaf area and leaf biomass, but damaged the leaf chloroplast ultrastructure of most species. Among the six shrubs, Duranta repens Linn. might adapt to the urban street light better than other 5 species in Guangzhou. We suggested that highly sensitive trees should be avoided in areas where high intensity lighting is used. Our data provide a key starting point toward a better understanding to the effects of street lighting on the growth and suitable management of avenue shrubs in urban area.%大量的研究已经表明夜晚人工光照对人类和动物的生活存在负面的影响。但是很少有文献涉及全球不断增强的夜晚人工光照对植物的影响。研究假设不断增强的城市夜晚人工光照将影响行道树的生长，实验模拟行道树受到的城市夜晚人工弱光照射环境（1和10μmol·m-2·s-1），对6种常用行道树在对照和夜晚光处理条件下的生长，生物量分配，叶片形态，叶绿体超微结构等进行比较研究。研究结果表明，城市夜晚人工光照显著影响城市6种灌木的生长，不同种类的植物对夜晚光照的影响存在一定的差异。总体上，夜晚光照使大部分植物种类的叶面积和叶片生物量增加，但是叶片叶绿体受到破坏。在6种实验植物中，假连翘Duranta repens Linn.比其它5种灌木更能适应城市夜晚道路的光照环境。通过实验研究，我们建议对光敏感性高的灌木应该尽量避免种植在高强度光照的环境。实验结果为了解城市道路光照对行道树生长的影响以及城市行道树的管理提供了一个重要的参考。
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