Rainbow Flowers

I read an article today about some Dutch flower wholesaler who has spent around six months developing 'Rainbow flowers' by using an assortment of dyes that the flowers draw up and turns the petals different colours. So far he has only perfected the art for Roses and Chrysanthemums.

As much as they do look quite amazing I am a little miffed. I've been doing this for the past eight years at work and never marketed it......

To fill in some of the non techies out there it is a very common demonstration in Biology to show water flow or liquid uptake of xylem vessels. To illustrate this I started with leafy bits of celery and red dyes that stain the xylem and leaves. It works but is a bit boring so started taking white roses and carnations and splitting the xylem vessels so one half would be red the other white. Then being a bit bored started separating and adding more dyes and 'perfecting the art' until hey presto rainbow flowers with nothing more than food colouring, water, scalpel and occasionally sticky tape.

I could be rich by now..... And to top it off perfected the art of preserving the specimens too but I'm not revealing that to no dutch flower art impostor.......