News Plants

Day-Glo Flowers: Some bright blooms naturally fluoresce

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

Flowers such as four-o’clocks and portulacas invented the fluorescent look long before the psychedelic 1960s with its black light posters, new research shows.

AREA OF GLOW. A lab-grown four-o’clock flower under white light (left) looks yellow where a betaxanthin pigment fluoresces, as revealed by a filtered image (right), and no other pigment absorbs that light. Gandía-Herrero, J.