Flowers viewed in UV

[Gibster]

Whilst trawling the internet I came across this excellent blogsite http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com/ The chap certainly has an eye for detail! Scrolling down to his entry for March 20th will take you to another excellent site, http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_flowers_list.html which is a real eye-opener (pun intended.) It shows how various wildflowers appear when viewed through the Ultraviolet spectrum. The resulting imagery may be similar to how an insect's eyes would see things. It goes on to tell us of UV fluorescence across various parts of the flower, pollinating guide patterns and much more as well as divulging a couple of pertinent points regards digital camera work. It also raises lots of apparently unanswered (or unexplored?) possibilities.

Check out the cinquefoils, lesser celandine and some of the umbellifers, no wonder insects love 'em!

I found the site and simply had to share. Enjoy

Gibster.

[Susie]

Thanks Gibster. I enjoyed it too.

Did you know that in a similar way to the way that some people are colour blind and can't distinguish certain colours some lucky people can actually see additional colours (or at least shades of colour), there being another dimension of blue as one example.

[millerd]

I'm sure I read somewhere that if you have the lens of your eye removed for some reason, you can see further into the ultraviolet spectrum (the lens filters out certain wavelengths apparently). I don't know if this is accurate...

Dave

[Susie]

I imagine it would fry your eyeballs too!

Here's linkage to the extra colour thingy http://www.blogadilla.com/2008/06/08/ar ... rachromat/

[Dave McCormick]

Interesting link gibster, very interesting to see what flowers look like under UV, surprising that some look black or some show up strongly. Can see why insects visit certain flowers more than others!

[hilary]

Thanks for giving this very interesting link. I particularly enjoyed where it gave another link (in the introduction) to the 'insecticidal' and deterrent properties of of the chemical responsible for the U.V. patterns.