True Blue....or is it?

First, thank you for the kind words and the stars and hearts for yesterday's hummingbird.

Bill brought home a blue delphinium and I thought it would be fun to find out about blue flowers, which is rare in nature. As you can see, this flower isn't a true blue, even though it is called that. I thought the below article I found was quite informative. So now I know, and you do too! I removed a little stem, because I thought it would be fun to have this "float". A little bit of messing about in Picasa on this image also. Tomorrow...Back to the Beach!!

Flowers come in a wide array of colors, but a true, or pure, blue color is harder to find. The reason for this has to do with genetic selection through the years: plants naturally select for yellow and red flowers but not blue.

Yellow flowers tend to attract insects like bees. Flowers, therefore naturally select for the color yellow because bees help pollinate yellow colored flowers more than flowers of other colors. Bees can’t see the color red but birds can. Flowers, therefore, also naturally select for the color red because small birds, particularly humming birds, aid in pollinating red flowers more then any other color. But what function does the color blue have in pollination? Insects and birds aren’t drawn to the blue like they are yellow and red. Thus, flowers are full of genetic material that will produce yellow, red, or many combinations of these two colors, whereas the color blue is really hard to come by.

Bees and other pollinators tend to prefer yellow flowers, or flowers that look yellow to them under ultra-violet light.

Even white flowers are easier to genetically select for than blue flowers because a white flower is simply an albino flower. Breeding for an albino flower is less difficult. The color purple, a combination of blue and red, can be readily produced in a flower because of the presence of red. Coincidentally, a lot of blue flowers, if you look closely, will have a hint of red in them that makes them look slightly purple. It is really hard to completely remove the red in purple flowers; hence, true or pure blue is hard to find in flowers.

‘Victoria Blue’ Salvia is said to be one of the few flowers that are a true, deep blue.

Basically all other flowers will have a hint of red with the blue, making them look more purple.