Flowers Have Secret Blue Halos That Bumblebees Can See
Several blooms have a blue ring at the base of their petals that’s produced in a very unusual way.
Roses are red, violets are blue. Except they’re not. They’re, er, violet.
True blue flowers are exceedingly rare, and not for lack of effort. Plant breeders have repeatedly tried to nudge roses and chrysanthemums into blueness, but doing so is really hard (at least, without the use of dyes). These flowers get their colors from pigments called , which typically look pink or red. A flower must chemically tweak these pigments to make them bluer, and even if they did, the results are essentially purple.
