Practicing Deconstruction:Treachery in Little Red Flowers

Little Red Flowers is a movie directed by a renowned young director in China,Zhang Yuan,according to the

Paper-cuts Like Red Flowers Blooming in the Snow

IN those days, when heavy snow sealed the mountain passes, it was only the sight of red paper-cuts on the windows which said to me there were people living in those houses covered with deep and solid snow. Every time I travel to the Northwest, I have come across paper-cutters who touch me so deeply that I can’t forget their faces even long after I return to the city. Sometimes in the harsh winters of the Northwest, there is no color but the monotonous white of the snow until the lively red of the paper-cuts spring into sight. These colorful, waiting things like cheerful signals of warmth and humanity,

The ultraviolet colour component enhances the attractiveness of red flowers of a bee-pollinated plant

Aims Bee-pollinated flowers are rarely red,presumably because bees(which lack red receptors)have difficulty detecting red targets.Although the response of bees to red colour has been investigated in lab experiments,most stimuli have been pure red,while the subtle diversity of red as perceived by humans(human-red)has received very limited attention.Here we test the hypothesis that ultraviolet(UV)reflected from human-red flowers enhances their attractiveness to bees,through increased chromatic contrast.Methods Using Onosma confertum(Boraginaceae),a plant with UV-reflecting red flowers that are pollinated by bumblebees,we investigated the effects of UV reflection on pollinator responses by conducting phenotypic manipulation experiments in the field.Colour preferences of flower-naïve bumblebees were also examined.Colour perception by bumblebees was estimated in terms of chromatic and achromatic contrast,based on two different colour perception models.Important Findings We found that both natural and flower-naïve bumblebees strongly preferred visiting UV-reflecting targets compared with UV-absorbing ones.Colour models show that the UV-reflecting flowers exhibit higher spectral purity and higher chromatic contrast against the foliage background,whereas they have similar achromatic contrast in terms of green receptor contrast.These results indicate that the component of UV reflection increases chromatic contrast in O.confertum,enhancing the visual attractiveness of these red flowers to bumblebees.We further infer that the secondary reflectance might be a necessary component in human-red flowers that are primarily pollinated by animals without red receptors,such as bees.

New taxa of Berberis (Berberidaceae) with greenish flowers from a biodiversity hotspot in Sichuan Province, China

A new species,Berberis viridiflora X.H.Li,and a new variety,Berberis sanguinea Franch.var.viridisepala X.H.Li,L.C.Zhang & W.H.Li are described and illustrated from Baoxing County,a biodiversity hotspot located on the eastern edge of Hengduan Mountains in Sichuan Province,Southwest China,Both new taxa resemble B.sanguinea Franch.var.sanguinea,but B.viridiflora differs by the greenish flowers,and the petals being truncate,obtuse,or undulate at apex;while B.sanguinea var.viridisepala differs by the greenish or yellowish green flowers.Morphological features of the pollen grains of B.sanguinea and the two new taxa are revealed by scanning election microscope.B.sanguinea var.sanguinea displays obvious similarities with a sympatric congener,Berberis multiovula T.S.Ying in the morphology of flowers,stems and leaves,especially its ovule number varies greatly from 2 to 9,thus,B.multiovula characterized by the5-ovuled ovary is reduced to a synonymy of B.sanguinea var.sanguinea.On the basis of field surveys and study of herbarium specimens,a total of 16 species and varieties of Berberis are recorded from Baoxing County,and a key is provided.Among the 16 taxa,most phenotypic variations in Chinese Berberis can be displayed,including the habit of plants,most morphological variations of stems,branches and leaves,all types of inflorescences,all color types of flowers,and nearly all types of the shape and color of fruits.Baoxing County and its adjacent Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries possibly constitute an active diversification center of Berberis in eastern Hengduan Mountains of China.