Color terms
Jane McGary (Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:28:48 PDT)

Lee Poulsen's explanation was very interesting and clear -- a good example
of a scientist or engineer who knows how much information a general
audience is likely to want!

When we look at flowers, we're seeing more than the color effects Lee
discussed, because the surface of a flower petal is not as flat as a piece
of paper or a monitor screen. There's a discussion of this in the
forthcoming NARGS Rock Garden Quarterly in an article by Alan McMurtrie on
hybridizing reticulata irises. He points out that the surface cells on the
iris petals are of different 3-dimensional shapes depending on species or
hybrid clone, and that the way the light "bounces" back and forth between
the raised pigmented structures affects the way the human eye perceives the
colors, because the light "picks up" extra color as it is refracted, if
that's the right word, multiple times.

Another writer commented that the light under which we view a color sample
affects what we see. This is an effect well known to anyone who deals with
fabrics, in particular. You have to take your fabric where you can see it
in daylight in order to perceive it correctly. (Some kinds of artificial
lighting mimic daylight more or less effectively.) I've also read that
flower colors are affected by the angle of the sun at different latitudes,
so that the same flower would appear different colors in, say, Arizona and
Toronto. I think a lot of flowers in the blue-pink range look better in
diffuse sunlight than in brilliant sun, while bright reds tend to look
better in strong sun, but this is just a personal reaction.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA