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Visual perception of colourful petals reminds us of classical fragments

Sophia Rhizopoulou¹, Apostolis Argiropoulos¹, Emmanuel Spanakis², Demetris Gikas¹, Nikos Alexandredes¹, Danae Koukos¹, & Demetrios Anglos²

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1. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Biology, Department of Botany, Panepistimioupolis, Athens 157 84, Greece
2. Foundation of Research and Technology, Institute of Electronic Structure & Laser, Heraklion 711 10 Crete, Greece

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Date:

Received 16 January 2008 15:46 UTC; Posted 16 January 2008

Subjects:

Ecology

Tags:

• Plant biology
• nanoscale morphometry
• flower petal

Abstract:

Colour has attracted the interest and attention of many of the most gifted intellects of all time. Ideas of early thinkers were not -and could not have been- grasped on a scientific level without knowledge of a kind that lay far in the future. One character that is being considered is the colourful surfaces of living tissues, which could hardly have been visualized without a corresponding reference to the microscale parallel. Millions of years before man made manipulated synthetic structures, biological systems were using nanoscale architecture to produce striking optical effects. Here we show the microsculpture of the adaxial surface of flower petals from the asphodel, the Stork’s-bill and the common poppy by using optical, scanning electron and atomic force microscopy. Microsculpture has been studied in leaves and pollen grains of higher plants. To the best of our knowledge imaging and nanoscale morphometry of petals has not been reported hitherto. Our findings on flower petals’ microsculpture may be linked with aspects on colour revealed from ancient literature.

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This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How to cite this document:

Rhizopoulou, Sophia, Argiropoulos, Apostolis, Spanakis, Emmanuel, Gikas, Demetris, Alexandredes, Nikos, Koukos, Danae, and Anglos, Demetrios. Visual perception of colourful petals reminds us of classical fragments. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2008.1523.1> (2008)

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