Nanoscale glitches let flowers make a blue blur that bees can see
Imperfectly spaced petal ridges weaken iridescence — but that’s all good
By
Susan Milius
10:00am, October 25, 2017
A bit of imperfection could be perfect for flowers creating a “blue halo” effect that bees can see.
At least a dozen families of flowering plants, from hibiscuses to daisy relatives, have a species or more that can create a bluish-ultraviolet tinge using arrays of nanoscale ridges on petals, an international research team reports online October 18 in Nature. These arrays could be the first shown to benefit from the sloppiness of natural fabrication, says coauthor Silvia Vignolini, a physicist specializing in nanoscale optics at the University of Cambridge.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nanoscale-glitches-let-flowers-make-blue-blur-bees-can-see
