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Blog / General Gardening / Plant Magic: How Flowers—and Leaves—Change Color

Plant Magic: How Flowers—and Leaves—Change Color

October 12, 2017

Have you ever looked out at your garden and thought “I’m SURE I didn’t plant flowers THAT color”? We received some photos from a local gardener who said his blue garden phlox seemed to be changing to a pink color between morning and afternoon. Although you might think that the flower colors just looked different in the changing light or because they were aging and fading, he rightly assumed that something else was going on. A little sleuthing into the pigments that give plants their colors explains how this color shift happens.

Color change of garden variety tall phlox: lavender in morning to raspberry in afternoon. Photo by Ray Cavenderp.
Tall phlox, lavender in morning
Color change of garden variety tall phlox: lavender in morning to raspberry in afternoon. Photo by Ray Cavenderp.
Tall phlox, raspberry in afternoon

Flower color
The plant pigments that affect flower color include alkaloids, carotenoids, and flavonoids. Anthocyanins are flavonoid plant pigments responsible for blue–purple to pink flower colors. Some factors that influence the anthocyanin content of flower petals include:

  • Temperature
  • Light
  • pH

Cooler morning temperatures that increase anthocyanin content and produce darker colors, and hotter afternoon temperatures that reduce anthocyanin content, producing lighter colors, can explain the mysterious shift from blue to pink in our gardener’s phlox.

Leaf color
Plant pigments and temperature also play an important role in the leaf color changes we see every fall. Carotenoids and the flavonoid anthocyanins—in addition to chlorophylls—are leaf plant pigments. As leaves lose chlorophyll and much of their carotenoid pigments, the remaining carotenoids give some leaves their yellow fall color. As with flowers, temperature and light also affect leaf colors. Cold, sunny days help increase the anthocyanins, which can give leaves varying shades of red—or orange—if enough carotenoids are present. The anthocyanins and the remaining chlorophyll make many fall leaves brown rather than red.

For more information, see Leaf Pigments by Harvard Forest.

Article written by Debbie Green, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

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Categories General Gardening Tags flower color, leaf color, plant pigments

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