Colour in plants is of great cultural importance, influencing many areas of human endeavour including horticulture, art, and gastronomy. Colour also plays a vital role in the biology of plants by absorbing harmful radiation from the sun, capturing light to drive photosynthesis, and signalling the availability of flowers and fruit.

This half-day course of lecture, practical demonstration, and garden walk with Botanic Garden Director, Professor Beverley Glover will explore the concept of colour in plants. Beverley will explain how colourful pigments are made, by what mechanisms different colour hues are achieved and for what effect, why some colours are more common than others, and how plants can make structural colour without the use of pigments at all.

Director of the Botanic Garden, Professor Beverley Glover came to Cambridge in 1996 following a PhD at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Her main area of interest is the evolution and development of floral features which attract pollinating animals. She is keen to approach questions of floral evolution in an integrative way, combining molecular genetic approaches to understand floral development with functional analyses using bumblebees and other pollinators. Where possible, these projects are carried out within the phylogenetic context. The research group’s work on these topics is underpinned by the living collection at the Botanic Garden.