[thedoc (OP)]

Find out how to make your own garishly coloured flowers, and how it relates to the way plants lift water to their leaves.

Read more about this kitchen science experiment.

[chapter podcast=1834 track=09.06.21/Naked_Scientists_Show_09.06.21_4088.mp3] Listen to the Experiment[/chapter] or [download as MP3]

[BenV]

We recieved this email from Ashley in Australia:

Hi Chris
Greetings from Australia.
I listened to your podcast re changing colour of flowers using food colouring - you also invited us to send in photos.  My granddaughter and I picked a white rose and did the split stalk experiment - you invited us to send photos so here is our one and only attempt.  Emma was mightily impressed
By the way I enjoy your Friday morning contribution to Fran Kelly's program on Radio National.
Best
Ashley Dunn

Ashley and Emma included this great photo: [ Invalid Attachment ]

[Chemistry4me]

I remember trying this with celery and having it half blue and half orange.

[Karen W.]

Growing up we always did that with the wild trilliums we would pick from the woods down over the bank of our property line. They were always lovely.

[Karen W.]

Welcome to the forum David1!

Have you ever dyed flowers like this... it is really cool because you can create color schemes for your rooms.. LOL.. Flowers are nice anyway and I always found that some flowers took better to the dye then others so it was fun to experiment!

[mudd1]

Interesting experiment and thank you for the detailed explanation. But what a cruel thing to do to the snails! It really reads as if you were encouraging doing that as a kind of followup experiment.

I know snails don't have much of a nervous system but then we still have no idea how much of a nervous system is needed to produce sentience and in any case, what does it say about the human who does this to living things? Kill them with beer if you must protect your salad but to dry them out with salt to see osmosis in action... that's horrible.

[mathhhausin]

Find out how to make your own garishly coloured flowers, and how it relates to the way plants lift water to their leaves.

newbielink:http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/colour-your-own-flowers/ [nonactive]

Wow nice stuff ...you gave wonderful site and its very informative ...Thanks for sharing ...

[daveshorts]

I guess you have to pick the dyes carefully so they are absorbed into the canary's system - something like beetroot

[billie-jo]

how do you actually split it like you split it then how does the food colouring get to the flower does it go through a vain type thing ??

[daveshorts]

I split it carefully using a knife, and then yes the dye is drawn up through the xylem - the tubes which the plant uses to lift water to the leaves.

[bigben]

this stuff helped alot
                thanx

[J]

'If you put two hydrophobic objects close together they are both attracting the small amount of water between them, so there is more attraction to lift less water, so the meniscus can rise  higher than normal.'

Hydrophobic should be hydrophilic.  Good article, I'm a sophomore biologist and now understand capillary action properly, thanks.