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New light on UV
Natural History, March, 2002
NEW LIGHT ON UV When we look at Hypericum calycinum--a flower in the Saint-John's-wort family--we see a uniformly yellow blossom. When insects look at it, they see a patterned blossom. Made by ultraviolet-absorbing pigments, such patterns are present on the "facial" surfaces of many flowers; they're thought to be among the distinguishing features that draw pollinators.
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What's surprising about H. calycinum, according to Matthew Gronquist and colleagues at Cornell University, is that as well as having a combination of UV pigments where we (or insects) might expect to find them, it also has them--in extraordinarily high concentrations--in unexpected places, namely the anthers and ovarian wall. Moreover, the pigments that are most concentrated at these unlikely locations are in the category known as DIPs (dearomatized isoprenylated phloroglucinols), which were not previously shown to function in floral UV patterning. They were, however, known to repel both mites and aphids, and new tests show that one DIP (hypercalin A) is in fact toxic to a caterpillar. So, say the researchers, chances are that UV pigments perform dual functions in H. calycinum: giving the come-hither to would-be pollinators while also warning off would-be predators. ("Attractive and Defensive Functions of the Ultraviolet Pigments of a Flower [Hypericum calycinum]," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98:24, 2001)
COPYRIGHT 2002 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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