Fruit Coloration: Attractive, Fatty Blue Colours?

Curr Biol. 2020 Oct 5;30(19):R1078-R1080. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.07.052.

Abstract

The use of visible colours as honest signals to attract seed-dispersers is a well-known property of fruits. While most of these colours are due to pigments, it has now been discovered that the evergreen Viburnum tinus shrubs display their edible and nutritious fruit with a blue structural colour based on lipid inclusions in the epidermal cells.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Color
  • Fruit
  • Lipids
  • Pigmentation
  • Viburnum*

Substances

  • Lipids