The most colorful fruit of the plant kingdom
Buenos Aires, September 10, 2012
A dazzling fruit of the African forest was declared as the most colorful among biological species known to science so far.
Small ‘pearls’, spherical, metallic blue, are the fruit of a plant called Pollia Condensata, grown in Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique, where they are used as decoration.
Its cells reflect different colors that give a “pointillist aspect”, the technique used by the Impressionists that through a series of points represents a solid color.
Through sophisticated microscopes, the scientists could see the iridescent skin of the fruit, which means that it changes color depending on the angle at which it is observed, has no blue pigment.
Its intense color comes from the interaction of light with small strands of cellulose fibers as stacked layers of helices within the cell walls of the fruit skin.
The distance between these layers vary slightly from cell to cell – alter the color reflected from each point and gives a stunning “pixelated”.