Autumn Hawksbit
Buttercups, Dandelions, Broom, Gorse and Autumn Hawkbit (pictured above) - there seems to be lots of yellow in the wild flower mix around here. When you see a yellow flower what you’re really seeing are the leftovers of pure light. The light all around us is made up of the colours you find in a rainbow and when light hits an object it absorbs certain bits of that spectrum, depending on what chemical is in the petal.
For example, chlorophyll, a chemical found in leaves and stems, is rubbish at absorbing light in the green spectrum, so we see the colour green as the leftovers. Similarly, yellow flowers have two other plant pigments, carotenoids and xanthophylls that are poor at absorbing yellows, oranges and reds so the most common wavelength they reflect, and we see, is yellow.
Most flowers use their colours to grab the attention of insects who might pollenate them and continue their species. However, insects don’t see colours the way we do. Bees, for example, see ultra violet light which makes a yellow flower look like a kind of target: white with a red centre.
Cool, eh? So, over millions of years, yellow flowers have settled on their own particular lustre to lure ertain insects. Other plants use other combinations of smell, colour and even texture to attract different insects, mammals and even birds. Yellow flowers are known to attract goldfinches and warblers whereas blue flowers seem to attract jays.
Long associated with the sun, joy, happiness and well-being, the colour yellow is popular with us humans too, so perhaps the flowers are actually using us as well..?
Common Blue Butterly on a Common bird’s-foot trefoil