Please, gentlemen, please stop giving your girlfriends Blue Roses, okay? !

On the brand new calendar, spring has already begun, on your red cheeks, winter has not yet moved away, on the bright petals, your breathing is becoming rapid - you are standing at the door of the shopping mall with a bouquet of flowers in your hand, waiting for your girlfriend.

Source: pexels

Although you don't know much about different kinds of flowers, you bought this bouquet after the florist's exaggerated introduction. The high price was mainly due to the fact that there were a few blue roses in it. This extremely rare color among flowers can best demonstrate your unique feelings.

Your girlfriend comes, you walk up to her with a smile and hand her the bouquet of flowers. She takes it calmly, a hint of surprise in her eyes, and then she whispers something in your ear, and your face turns red immediately.

"Baby, this flower is dyed, but I'm happy that you have this kind of heart."

All the men in love may have given "Blue Rose" as a flower. This blue flower looks very unique and romantic, but you don’t know that behind this "uniqueness" is actually a routine.

Source: Wikipedia

1

What is Blue Enchantress?

The so-called "Blue Enchantress" is actually a blue rose. The rose has long been a symbol of love. In Greek legend, the rose grew from the blood of Adonis, the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and represents passionate love.

Source: pexels

Everyone has the impression that roses are all red, and there are also some white and yellow varieties. If other colors appear, most people will think that the rose is artificial. Everyone is right. Although humans have cultivated roses for thousands of years, they have never cultivated a pure blue variety. All blue roses on the market are actually artificially dyed.

Make a blue rose using spray paint

Source: See watermark

Most of the "Blue Enchantress" on the market are artificially dyed flowers. There are three main dyeing methods: directly dipping white and pink flowers into blue dye, and then wrapping them in silver powder for dyeing; cutting the white flowers and soaking the flower stem cut into blue dye to rely on the plant's water absorption effect to turn the petals blue; or directly spraying white flowers with blue dye to turn them blue.

2

Why are there no blue roses?

As we all know, blue is a very rare color in nature. Among the 300,000 known flowering plant species in the world, only 10% will bloom blue flowers . However, most of them are not pure blue, but closer to purple. Blue roses are unheard of.

Researchers in China have studied 18 blue flowering plants and found that 15 of them contain a substance called delphinidin, which indicates that it is the key to the blue color of petals. Delphinidin glycoside appears purple when it exists alone, and appears blue when combined with co-pigments and metal cations. Flowering plants need a key enzyme called flavonoid 3'5' hydroxylase to produce delphinidin. The gene responsible for synthesizing this enzyme is figuratively called the blue gene , and roses lack this blue gene, so there are no blue roses in nature.

Source: pixabay

In addition, delphinidin has the characteristics of acid-red and alkaline-blue . The pH value of the cell sap of rose petals is between 3 and 5, which is slightly acidic. Therefore, even if it contains delphinidin, it cannot appear blue. Currently, scientists can use genetic modification technology to implant the "blue gene" into roses, but the color is obviously not satisfactory. In the future, in-depth research on how to control the pH value of the petal vacuole and related pigments is needed to hope to produce truly blue roses.

So are there really no blue roses? In fact, in 2008, Japan's Suntory used molecular genetics to transfer the anthocyanin synthase gene into the rose genome, creating a rose with a color close to blue , but the color of this flower looks closer to lavender.

Blue rose "Applause" developed by Suntory of Japan

Source: suntory.co.jp

In 2018, Chen Yihua, a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Professor Zhang Yan's research group at Tianjin University published a research result: they successfully expressed glutamine indigo blue , a non-ribosomal peptide blue pigment derived from bacteria, in white rose petals, making them appear blue. However, due to technical and cost limitations, this blue rose has not yet appeared in large quantities on the market.

The expression principle of blue roses discovered by Chinese scientists

Source: News Photo

3

Not only is the blue fake, the rose is also fake

The so-called "blue roses" are actually the result of artificial dyeing. Knowing this fact, do you begin to feel that you have been deceived? Don't be disappointed too soon, because there may be something hard to accept - in fact, even the rose bouquet you bought may not be roses.

Most of the so-called rose bouquets currently sold in the market are actually carefully selected hybrid scented roses . Real roses are very rare in flower shops, but this cannot be blamed on the shops. In fact, it is likely that most merchants themselves do not quite understand the difference between the two.

Simply put, this is because roses, roses, and wild roses all belong to the genus Rosa . In Western culture, plants of the genus Rosa are collectively referred to as "rose" in English, which literally means rose. The symbolic status of the name rose in love is self-evident, and it is also very helpful in increasing sales. Anyway, the appearance is almost the same, so it seems harmless to call them all roses (the roses your boyfriend gave you are all roses? Click here to review why~).

Finally, I believe everyone understands that when someone in love sends a bouquet of flowers, the price or rarity is secondary; the love it carries is what matters the most.