Lecture: "Rose red and violet blue - color in nature".

Lecture on Sunday, January 20, 2019in the Tropical Greenhouse Witzenhausen

Speaker: Botanist Dr. Hilke Steinecke (Frankfurt Palm Garden). Admission 5€.

"Colors are the children of light" (J.W. v. Goethe)
Plants inspire with their often intense fruit and flower colors. But what is behind them and what is the meaning of the colors? Flower biology provides an answer to why, for example, so many flowers in the tropics are colored red and how certain colors attract special pollinators. Have you heard of butterfly flowers? Or birdflowers? Or bat flowers?
Nature comes up with a rich spectrum of colors. The colors of most leaves are in the green range, but in the flowers all colors of the rainbow occur. But there are also pure white or rarely almost black flowers. Many flowers show their color effect and patterning by a mixture of different dyes and various surface structures.
Fruits are often shiny black or yellow, green, purple, rarely white or blue colored. They often change color during the ripening process, for example our tomatoes or peppers.
Plant colors also have many uses for us humans. What would currywurst be without yellow or jeans without blue? We use plant dyes to color food and textiles. The well-known botanist Dr. Hilke Dr. Steinecke from the Palmengarten in Frankfurt also knows about this in this colorful, richly illustrated lecture. As a curator, she has designed numerous exhibitions. Among them is a highly acclaimed campaign on colors in the plant kingdom. She communicates her expertise in catalogs, on the radio, on television and during her popular guided tours. Let the talented amateur photographer take you into the world of colors.
 
Read more: Color in Nature, Palmengarten Special Issue 42, 2009