Re: HYB: pigments - Into the Night

Currently my thoughts are that we should consider that there is an Anthocyanin Enhancemet (AE) gene from Iris aphylla. This gene is dominant and we have cumulative effects. That is two doses of AE are darker then one and the darkest have four dosages. 
I suspect the darkest blacks have an intense yellow underlay which is a combination of both beta-carotene and alpha-carotene. I have some results suggestive of this but its a bit complicated so I won't post them now. I havn't done any extraction on the blacks but its on the agenda. 

The darkest flowers also have very tall papilla which trap light and darken the colour. 
As to why we have red black and blue black? I'm not entirely sure but a guess would be that they are missing one or of the features needed for the darkest black, that is

1) four sets of AE
2) Maxed out on beta-carotene (or lycopene)
3) Maxed out on alpha-carotene
4) Maxed out on depth of papilla

Chuck Chapman

(from iris-photos)

I have always loved INTO THE NIGHT too.  Really interesting results!

Do you know whether or not the co-factors that result in black color,
supposedly from aphylla (hope I got all that more or less right), also
result in (more?) yellow pigment?

Or have you done any pigment extractions of black self flowers?  What
about red-blacks vs blue-blacks?

Is the yellow pigment water or oil soluble?

I've been assuming the yellow/pink pigment ground color in some of my
favorite "umbratas" (i.e., LIAISON) has been oil soluble, and that the
blooms are essentially selfs with a dark anthocyanin type 'shadow' on
the falls, and that the yellow/pink ground color group are more or less
variations of I. variegata pigments and pattern.

And I'd also assumed that the white/blue pigment ground color in other
favorites (i.e., INTO THE NIGHT) came from the same pattern, but with
the yellow/pink somehow not expressed in the rims and standards.  Same
pattern as I. variegata, but combined with another pattern.

<This is a flower I have always liked. I did a pigment extraction
analysis of this flower this year as I had some suspicions which were
confirmed  by the analysis. The falls had yellow pigment in them while the standards didn't. I also did a quantitative comparison of anthocyanin pigment in falls  and  standards. I did this by cutting equal sized pieces
of standards and falls. The amount of anthocyanin pigment was almost idemtical, allthough there was a very slightly more pigment in falls, but a very small difference.
Basically the falls were darker because the anthocyanin was combined with a yellow amoena.  I personally suspect the colour of standards is about as dark as we can get in iris without a carotene underlay.

Now think of such flowers as 'Local Color'and 'Romantic Evening' 
 Chuck Chapman 

__________________________________________________________________
Switch to Netscape Internet Service.
As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register

Netscape. Just the Net You Need.

New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer
Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups.
Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index