Re: HYB: Abbey Road pigments

It will be interesting to see the results of looking at all these yellow
looking pigments with your new gadget.  How far away from results are
you?

Whatever pigment wound up in the alcohol was <not> dissolving in the hot
water (I did a <lot> of rinsing), but was readily soluble in the alcohol
and not soluble in oil.  I'm not disagreeing that it <is> soluble in hot
water, just that it <wasn't>, for whatever reason.

I'm too ignorant to make up reasons - leave that up to you and Neil.
Either it was chemically less soluble (i.e., a different pigment),
protected mechanically (in another tissue maybe - veins vs intervein,
inner cell vs outer layer), or maybe chemically bound to something
else).  My guess is mechanical, since I'm not totally macerating the
petals first, & maybe the alcohol is better able to get into the tissues
than the water.  Which matches what you  suggest.

<  The pigment left in the alcohol is probably part of the water soluble
yellow that didn't get extracted the first time, rather then a third
pigment. . >

Is there a pathway that would explain deterioration from greenish yellow
pigment to a pinkish one?  Or from invisible to pinkish <g>?

<Some pigments are unstable and will deteriorate after a few days (or
even hours eg anthocyanin in alcohol that is not acidified)>

I had <no> problems with emulsions when I was using isopropyl alcohol
and safflower oil - the specific gravities of the two were farther apart
than the lamp oil (paraffin oil) and isopropyl.  But as you pointed out,
all vegetable oils have little bit of pigment to them.  Safflower oil is
nearly clear and works fine for strongly pigmented blooms, but wouldn't
work for these pale yellows.

< I had problems with emulsions until I started using combination of
clear lamp oil, which is a light oil, and methyal hydrate which is a
strong alcohol  (solvent) and with the two I get good separations. Old
flowers will produce some emulsions in best senarios.

Chuck, are you going to eventually be able to sort out some of the
xanthophylls and be able to tell us what color they look, both in the
bloom and in extractions?

 <                   3) The colour of standards looks very smooth,
delicate and  even in tone and in this shading is more like an
xanthophyll, a biproduct of carotene.

                   Chuck Chapman>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
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