The World's Most Shining and Beautiful Fruit

The Amazing purple/blue/metallic coloration of this tiny fruit called the Pollia Condensata, is the most intense of any known biological material in the world, and is quite mesmerizing. This plant that plant that grows to a height of less than half a meter in Africa which are spread throughout Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique and has long been used for decorative purposes because of an unusual and intense color properties.

The Pollia Condensata, the most shining fruits. (Picture from: http://oddstuffmagazine.com/)

The fruit is round, small, with a metallic color like beads. The fruits of Pollia condensata does have an unusual color. Besides having the physical appearance as mentioned above, this fruit also has a privilege that is, the fruit has no blue pigment even bluer.

As quoted from Dailymail, according to the recent research that published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said the colors are the result of reflection of light waves of different sizes on the skin of the fruit.

The most beatiful intensed color fruit of our world. (Picture from: http://oddstuffmagazine.com/)

The scientists also discovered that each individual cell generates colour independently, producing a pixelated or pointillist effect (like those in the paintings of Seurat). This colour is produced by the reflection of light of particular wavelengths from layers of cellulose in the cell wall. The thickness of the layers determines which wavelength of light is reflected. As a result, some cells have thinner layers and reflect blue; others have thicker layers and reflect green or red.

Fruits are made of cells, each of which is surrounded by a cell wall containing cellulose. However, the researchers found that in the Pollia condensata fruit the cellulose is laid down in layers, forming a chiral (asymmetrical) structure that is able to interact with light and provide selective reflection of only a specific colour. As a result of this unique structure, it reflects predominately blue light.

The researchers believe that the plants invest in the complicated colouring structure as a mechanism for seed dispersal. Although the Pollia fruit does not provide any nutritional value, birds are attracted to its bright colouring – possibly as a means of decorating their nests or impressing their mates. Dr Beverley Glover from the University of Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences, who jointly led the research said, "This obscure little plant has hit on a fantastic way of making an irresistible shiny, sparkly, multi-coloured, iridescent signal to every bird in the vicinity, without wasting any of its precious photosynthetic reserves on bird food. Evolution is very smart!"

Because of how it is created, the colour of the Pollia condensata fruit does not fade. The researchers found that samples of the fruit in herbarium collections dating back to the 19th century were as colourful and shiny as ones grown today. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | DAILYMAIL | PHYSORG | GI | PIKIRAN RAKYAT 28022013]

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