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Those plants that do appear blue are in fact often using a red pigment known as anthocyanin. Through pH shifts and a mixing of pigments, combined with the refle
by tipoftheiceberg 6y ago
Those plants that do appear blue are in fact often using a red pigment known as anthocyanin. Through pH shifts and a mixing of pigments, combined with the reflection of natural light, the plants are able to generate the appearance of a naturally occurring, blue color. That's the reason why plants such as bluebells, hydrangeas and morning glories appear various shades of blue, when in fact, as Lee explains, "There is no true blue pigment in plants."
- irrational 6y agoWhat does it matter whether they have blue pigment or not? If nearly every person looks at it with their own eyes and say, "That is definitely blue" then it is blue. I don't care why or how it is blue. Anything else is just pedantry.
- Green_man 6y agoSome of the "blues" generated in nature rely on specific physical structure or other tricks to appear blue. This means they reflect predominantly blue light, but may not retain that "blueness" when ground/processed into a pigment. That's one reason there are few natural organic blue pigments, even the ancient Egyptians relied on chemical solutions for "Egyptian Blue". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue#Pigments_and_dyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue#Pigments_and_dyes Interestingly, the one dye listed in the link above that came from a plant is indigo, which is extracted from the green leaves of the plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigofera_tinctoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigofera_tinctoria . There's no animal or plant I know of that both appears blue and could be used to create even a poor blue pigment, though I'd definitely be interested in any exceptions I haven't heard of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g246c6Bv58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g246c6Bv58
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- thangalin 6y ago* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0305049189900904 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030504... * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5444072/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5444072/ * https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/fishsci1994/61/6/61_6_964/_pdf https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/fishsci1994/61/6/61_6_9... -- see figure 2 on page 4, showing extracted carotenoproteins
- Green_man 6y agoThanks, this is really interesting stuff!
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- tipoftheiceberg 6y agoWhen studying flora, things like color or inflorescence, for example, are examined with excessive concern with minor details, though.
- tipoftheiceberg 6y agoDo you ever manipulate your hydrangeas’ color by changing soil pH? One easy way is adding used coffee grinds.
- jacobolus 6y ago> through [...] mixing of pigments, combined with the reflection of natural light, the plants are able to generate [...] blue color We have a way to describe objects which “generate a blue color when light shines on them”. We say they are “blue” objects. Likewise, bird feathers or butterfly wings which absorb/reflect light based on their small-scale structure and appear blue are still called “blue”, even though they might be colorless when pulverized. There are plenty of “blue flowers” out there.
- tipoftheiceberg 6y agoRight, but botanically speaking, we have not found a “true blue” plant.
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