The jade orchid, a plant of the Puya genus (Pineapple family) native to Chile, blooms with jade-colored flowers that are rare in nature. Molecular phylogenetic studies have suggested that this jade-colored flower originates from a hybrid between a species with blue flowers and a species with pale yellow flowers, but in Japan there are almost no examples of flowers in the Puya genus. Therefore, no analysis of pigments was performed.

　This time, the blue flowers of Puya cerulea violacea bloomed at the Tsukuba Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature and Science in 2019, and the pale yellow flowers of Puya chilensis bloomed at the Atagawa Banana and Crocodile Garden in 2021. Now we were able to compare the composition of these flower pigments with those of jade-colored flowers.

　The results revealed that jade orchids produce their jade color by combining both blue flower pigments and pale yellow flower pigments. This result once again suggests that the jade orchid originated from a hybrid.

　In addition, in order to verify whether the hypothesis that ``the reason why there are almost no jade-colored flowers in nature is because they are difficult for birds to see'' is correct, we conducted research on passerine birds, which are pollinators of jade orchids. Visual evaluation revealed that the jade-colored flowers appear more vivid to birds with tetrachromatic color vision, such as passerine birds. This suggests that jade-colored flowers do not pose a disadvantage to survival in nature.

　The results of this research not only provide clues to how jade-colored flowers were born and have survived, but are also expected to lead to the breeding of new jade-colored ornamental plants in the future.

Paper information:【Journal of Plant Research】Floral pigments and their perception by avian pollinators in three Chilean Puya species