Customer Reviews

Nature's Palette: The Science of Plant Color

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The colors of nature are complex. In fact from nature (rocks, animals and plants) is where we derive all of our colors for art, house painting, tattooing, fabrics, printing, etc. Most of us humans (except for the color-blind) are almost totally tied to color in our daily lives and easily notice the lack of it. Many of our colors are derived from plants and their fossils (coal tar dyes come to mind), but only a relatively few of us are aware of the complexity of plant colors.

David Lee has now tackled this subject in "Nature's Palette: The Science of Plant Color" and has produced a handy guide to color and plants that should be understandable to all with at least some high school chemistry and physics. Others may find parts a bit difficult, but the text is well worth the effort even if you have had no physics or chemistry at all. Lee explains the principles of color theory early in this book and once that is covered the rest is just pure fun. You learn that there are both physical (structural) and chemical (pigmentation) colors and that these can occur in flowers, leaves, stems, and roots and that the pigments found in plants have been used by humans for numerous purposes, from henna as a temporary tattoo pigment to madder for orange and red dyes. This knowledge is in general not too painful to attain because Lee sprinkles his writing with examples and interesting side trips.

In short this book will introduce the reader to the world of plant colors and in the process expand their world and enhance their pleasure in gardening, traveling or just pure knowledge of the world around them. I highly recommend it.

The book provides me with a new perspective to look at leaves, seeds and other parts of plants. Color photographs are pleasing. The book is not light reading, however, it is for a layman. The pictures and photographs of cross sections are not properly explained. I skimmed some boring sections such as that on light refraction. There are many pages of molecular diagrams that seem irrelevant.

There is a delightful chapter on how to extract colors from flowers. The book has many interesting facts. What is the origin of the names Indigo and Brazil? Which is the most popular apple variety? What is the color of the Rudraksha fruit before it shrivels? What is the full form of the names of multinationals BASF and AGFA and why would they be mentioned in a book about plant colors? Read the book to find out!