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Blue spruce is actually pretty darn green, but its needs have a waxy coating that alters our perception of the colour of the underlying tissue. New needles, an
by bregma 6y ago
Blue spruce is actually pretty darn green, but its needs have a waxy coating that alters our perception of the colour of the underlying tissue. New needles, and needles you scrape with your fingernails, reveal their true green colour.
A waxy coating is a strong selector for survival in an environment where preventing evaporation is a must, such as locations in which the ambient temperature drops below the freezing point of water for much of the year.
- SECProto 6y agoDo black spruce have a waxy coating? They certainly don't appear blue, and they thrive in locations with much colder winters than the blue spruce.
- piva00 6y agoAs far as I know all coniferous (Pinophyta) have waxy coatings, black spruces are a species of Pinophyta so I'd assume they do. I might be wrong, I'm no botanist.
- dTal 6y agoIsn't that a little like saying that a shiny red sports car is actually metallic gray, but it has a coating that alters our perception of it so that it appears red to our eyes? Color is what we perceive, nothing else. If it looks blue, it is blue.
- Avamander 6y agoWell, if you look the world through blue-tinted windows it doesn't make the world suddenly bluer though. I think the same kind-of applies here.
- TwelveNights 6y agoI think in this case the wax lining on the pines would be moreso a property of the object rather than the apparatus through which we see the object.
- yndoendo 6y agoIs not the category of it Photosynthesis? Internally the environment of Blue spruce is the evolutionary standard of Green, not Blue. The blue perception would also reflect a Blue perception of photosynthesis standard.
- bregma 6y agoIt's more like saying that the steel your shiny red sports car is made of is actually metallic grey even though it has a veneer of red enamel on it.