Beauty is Petal Deep (BioE80 Spr2015)
May 26, 2015 • 8:25 PM UTC
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theresanya
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We have always loved looking at flowers while out on nature hikes and decided to investigate them with our Foldscope to learn more about the difference between different flower petal coloring on a microscopic scale. The exploration question we crafted was: How do various types of flowers differ in the ways they achieve petal coloring on a cellular level?
We were able to take two different purple flowers, which upon first glance looked to be about the same color, and use our Foldscope to get images of their petals. We were able to see that the first petal, whose image is shown in Figure 1, showed striping of different purples with the cells colored either a darker or lighter color. On the other hand, the second petal’s cells, shown in Figure 2, were each comprised of a spectrum of shades of purple which, together, created the overall color of the flower. In addition, the first picture documents how the cells were more tightly packed together while the second picture shows how the cells were farther apart, letting light pass through the spaces between them. Thus, the comparison between these two petals shows that petal coloring is not all the same and flowers are unique in how the individual and collective structure of their cells contribute to the perceived hue. It would be interesting to further explore if these microscopic differences in how petals are colored are detectable to insects, and if they are, what information they convey to them.
We were able to take two different purple flowers, which upon first glance looked to be about the same color, and use our Foldscope to get images of their petals. We were able to see that the first petal, whose image is shown in Figure 1, showed striping of different purples with the cells colored either a darker or lighter color. On the other hand, the second petal’s cells, shown in Figure 2, were each comprised of a spectrum of shades of purple which, together, created the overall color of the flower. In addition, the first picture documents how the cells were more tightly packed together while the second picture shows how the cells were farther apart, letting light pass through the spaces between them. Thus, the comparison between these two petals shows that petal coloring is not all the same and flowers are unique in how the individual and collective structure of their cells contribute to the perceived hue. It would be interesting to further explore if these microscopic differences in how petals are colored are detectable to insects, and if they are, what information they convey to them.
Figure 1
Figure 2 Explorers: Anya Agrawal and Theresa Sievert
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