The most colorful fruit of the plant kingdom Buenos Aires,
September 10, 2012 A dazzling fruit of the African forest was
declared as the most colorful among biological species known to
science so far. Small ‘pearls’, spherical, metallic blue, are
the fruit of a plant called Pollia Condensata, grown in
Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique, where they are used as
decoration. Its cells reflect different colors that give a
“pointillist aspect”, the technique used by the Impressionists
that through a series of points represents a solid color.
Through sophisticated microscopes, the scientists could see the
iridescent skin of the fruit, which means that it changes color
depending on the angle at which it is observed, has no blue
pigment. Its intense color comes from the interaction of light
with small strands of cellulose fibers as stacked layers of
helices within the cell walls of the fruit skin. The distance
between these layers vary slightly from cell to cell – alter the
color reflected from each point and gives a stu