Botanic Photonics

Interdisciplinary Research group in the Physics Department at the University of Bath, UK

Disorder in convergent floral nanostructures enhances signalling to bees

Many flowers have a textured surface, with ridges on the cells of the petal. Just as the ridges of a CD produce a rainbow effect, they reflect light; unlike on a CD, the ridges are disordered, meaning the light they reflect is a blue sheen, or ‘halo’.

Find the paper here