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Flowers viewed in UV

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 5:24 pm
by 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 :D

Gibster.

Re: Flowers viewed in UV

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:50 pm
by 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. :)

Re: Flowers viewed in UV

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:56 pm
by 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

Re: Flowers viewed in UV

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:01 pm
by 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/

Re: Flowers viewed in UV

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:46 pm
by 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!

Re: Flowers viewed in UV

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 11:03 am
by 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.