The anatomy of flower color
Roses are red, violets are blue. Everybody knows that, but what makes them so? Although plant breeders were aware of some of the genes involved, there was as yet no quantitative study of how pigment turns a flower red, blue or yellow. Casper van der Kooi conducted just such a study, combining biology and physics.
In a paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on 11 May, he describes the process by which cell structures inside flowers scatter light, and pigments filter this backscattered light, producing colour. 'We recently published* a mathematical model describing colour formation, and in this paper we apply it to a number of plants', says Van der Kooi. He also combined his findings with information about the visual system of insects, thus revealing the anatomical tricks plants use to attract insects.
Casper J. van der Kooi, J. Theo M. Elzenga, Marten Staal, Doekele G. Stavenga. How to colour a flower: on the optical principles of flower coloration. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2016; 283 (1830): 20160429 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.0429
Localization of pigments in the petals of Phaseolus coccineus (runner bean). Scale bar: 50 µm. Credit: Casper van der Kooi
