Page 20 - (DK) Flowers
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Blooming colors DO-IT-YOURSELF COLORS
To see how a flower draws up water, you will need some
white carnation flowers, tap water, and food coloring.
Flowers use their colors to
attract insects. When a bee 1. Take a white 3. Within an hour, one half
or a butterfly sees a brightly carnation and ask will change color! This
colored flower, it flies an adult to split happens because the flower
toward it. The color the lower half draws up the water and the
is like a signpost that of the stem in two. color through the stem.
shows where tasty
nectar can be found.
2. Put one side in
tap water, and the Water with
other in water with food coloring
Color pigments food coloring.
Flowers contain natural Tap water
substances called pigments,
which give color to their
petals. The varying colors
are a result of the different
types of pigment present.
Green for growth
Plants have a green pigment in their leaves
called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is very
important for plants, because it collects
Dyes from plants energy from sunlight so that they
Ancient Greeks and Romans can grow. Before their leaves drop, the
used plant pigments to dye Crocus green color of the leaves changes into
their clothes. They used crocus Madder flower yellow and red—the colors you
flowers to make yellow, woad roots see in the fall.
plant to make blue, and the roots
of madder plants for red. Woad
plant
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