What decides the flower's colour???

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RubiNisha trichy, India Feb 09, 2015

What decides the flower's colour???

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Diana_K Contra Costa County, CA(Zone 9b) Feb 09, 2015

The genes of the parent plants.
If you are trying to develop a new variety of something, then start with parent plants that include some of the colors you are looking for.
Lets say you want to breed a pink flower with white stripes. You might start with a mother plant that has striped flowers, and a father plant that has pink flowers.

Flowers can be many colors, and have evolved with the insect or other animal which pollinates them so the insect sees certain colors really well, and the flower is the right color and shape to be pollinated by that insect.
Examples:
Honeybees see into the ultraviolet, and flowers pollinated by honeybees often have lines pointing toward the pollen and nectar that we cannot see. The lines are in the ultraviolet range that bees can see. Honeybees will visit lots of colors of flowers, but seem more attracted to blues.
Honeybees are small, and do not do deep tubular flowers well, but butterflies and hummingbirds have long tongues, so will visit these flowers. Hummingbirds are attracted to red, but will also visit other colors, and shallower flowers.
There are also plants that are pollinated by bats, so only open at night.

Post #10020091
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WeeNel Ayrshire Scotland, United Kingdom Feb 13, 2015

Nature is wonderful and whether animal, plants, etc, the colour comes from the mix of parentage genes, this gives the humans the skin colour, eye, hair and the same in animals, so it stands to reason the plants take the same from the parent type, there are always cross breading and the dominant colouring always comes to the fore.
I think Diana has given the the info you need .
Kindest Regards.
WeeNel.

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