Re: HYB: more questions - pigment extraction

Neil's comments remind me of my frustration when I first read the
information in TWOI - all those chemical pathways and not a word about
what most of the various pigments <look> like, either in the flower or
in solvent.  At least not that we could find anywhere.

I repeated the tomato extraction, this time heating the mushed up tomato
in the mineral oil (cooking it, like Neil's suggested spaghetti sauce),
letting it sit awhile, then adding alcohol.  The tomato mush settled in
the bottom with the alcohol, leaving the oil & pigments in the top
transparent layer.

It came out a bit redder this time, closer to the orange in kitchen
cleaners (orange Fantastic) than liquid Dial this time, but still quite
orange.   Definitely not what anybody would call red.

=====Do these little tomatos have so much oil soluble <yellow> pigment
that I'm having a hard time seeing the <red>??=======

I have a few red flowers that I can experiment on - maybe they will work
better than the tomato.  Impatiens, geranium (Pelargonium), and
Pineapple Sage.

If there is always this much oil soluble yellow pigment present with
pink/red, I doubt I will be able to tell whether or not red is present
in iris flower parts.

===== Have I missed something?  Is there a way to separate the yellow
pigment from the red using readily available relatively non-toxic
kitchen science? ========

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
photos archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>

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