Some plant leaves are blue, but have no blue pigments. How does that work?
Tag - iridescence
Sarah Covshoff
Attracting bees is not always a smooth process for plants
Cambridge researchers have shown that plants can regulate the chemistry of their petal surface to create iridescent signals visible to bees.
Eurekalert
Dale Maylea
Functional significance and optical properties of floral visual signals
Many plants produce colourful flowers that play a role in pollinator attraction. These floral visual signals may have distinct optical properties that differ in biological relevance. In this review, van der Kooi et al...
Alex Assiry
Iridoplasts, out of the shadows at last
Why can you find colourful plants, where they're hardest to see? Iridoplasts, an overlooked plastid, improve photosynthesis and look great while doing it.
Nigel Chaffey
Silica nanoparticles and structural leaf coloration
Blue iridescence is produced by both the helicoidal wall and silica nanoparticles in the helicoid.
AJ Cann
Pollia pigmentation pooh-poohed
Despite appearances – and often therefore assumptions – to the contrary, the intense blue-colour of the fruit of Pollia condensata is not due to pigment(s). Instead, it is another example of so-called ‘structural...
My favourite colour is structural colour
What do peacocks, CDs and certain plants have in common? They all have multi-coloured parts – feathers, surfaces or petals – which change their hue depending on the angle you look at them. This physical phenomenon in...
Anne Osterrieder