BEAUTIFUL YELLOW FLOWER POWERS NOW
Today we are looking at the amazing powers of yellow flowers.
PERFECT YELLOW ATTRACTIONS
Flower color is like a beacon to birds and bees, attracting them from afar. It turns out that these flying pollinators each have their own color preferences, as each have different visual and neural systems.
New findings suggest that yellow flowers evolved in symbiosis with the bees and birds that pollinate them.
Contrasting colors, between petals and centers within flowers, serve to guide birds and bees to the pollen once they approach.
The color yellow absorbs UV light. Birds and bees are both UV-sensitive.
Researchers from German Botanical Society and The Royal Botanical Society of the Netherlands recently tested yellow flowers, in particular, to see how they might differ in their abilities to attract.
They examined whether the presence or absence of the widespread UV reflectance pattern of yellow flowers is at all correlated to the type of pollinators they attract.
It turns out that most bee-pollinated flowers displayed a pattern with UV-absorbing centres and UV-reflecting peripheries, whereas the majority of bird-pollinated flowers are entirely UV- absorbing.
The researchers found that bees did not show consistent preferences for any color or pattern types. However, the bees honed in first on the yellow UV-absorbing areas of the flowers.
The appearance of UV patterns within flowers is the main difference in spectral reflectance between yellow bee- and bird-pollinated flowers, and it affects the foraging behaviour of flower visitors.
Findings suggest that yellow flower colors and the visual capabilities of their best and most efficient pollinators are adapted to each other.
YELLOW FLOWERS & WINE
Yellow flowers can make for better wine.
Driving past a Napa vineyard, you might be surprised to see a field of yellow flowers. They are are blossoming mustard plants. It turns out that these plants greatly improve the quality of the soil so that vineyards can grow grapes without the need for pesticides.
Mustard belongs to the brassica genus, which includes cabbages and broccolis, all of which naturally produce glucosinolates, which act as biofumigators. Mustard has particularly high levels of these “spicy” compounds, making them an excellent cover crop, grown while grape vines are dormant, to organically suppress both soil borne pests and disease.
Check out the massive yellow displays the next time you drive through Napa while the vines are “sleeping.”
YELLOW ROSES
Joy, optimism, warmth and friendship are the messages that yellow roses bring to humans, based on designations determined by Victorians and Middle Eastern cultures alike, since the 18th century, when they were first discovered.
Read more about Beautiful Yellow, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact.
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IMAGE CREDITS:
- Photo: Courtesy of WonderMondo. Spring Colors of Gorman Hills.
- Photo: by Nedra. Bee on Sunflower.
- Photo: Courtesy of USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab. Paracolletes, m, australia.
- Photo: Courtesy of The Plants I Grow. Primulas in Early June.
- Photo: by blondyimp. Honey bee.
- Photo: by Marc Cohen. Courtesy of About Orchids. Orchids in the Park.
- Photo: by Philip. A Tulip You Say?
- Photo: Courtesy of 543 List. The Most Beautiful Flowers in the World.
- Photo: by Overduebook. Bee.
- Photo: by Bill Thompson/USFWS. Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
- Photo: by mary wolfe. Honey Bee entering a Goldfinger flower.
- Photo: Courtesy of Lodi Wine. Yellow Flower Cover.
- Photo: Courtesy of Time to UNWine. Frogs Leap Winery.
- Photo: by The Q Speaks. Mustard.
- Photo: by Brian. Eye of a Rose.
- Photo: by Jamie McCaffrey. You are my sunshine! My only sunshine …
- Image: Courtesy of EZ2 Plant. (Renealmia cernua) Monkada.
- Photo: by Hans Brokob at Wandering About With No Supervision. Siphon Draw on New Years Eve.
