Pigment

The video is based on an experiment of a Plant physiology course (HORT301) for Horticulture and Biology students. It is a student production for the www.ChloroFilms.org competition. It depicts how flower pigments are analyzed using thin layer chromatography (TLC) and spectrophotometry. Investigations that shed light on the chemical and physical behavior of flower pigments are also shown as the isolated pigments are subjected to different pH and the change in spectral behavior (change of color) is monitored. In addition to visualizing pigments on a TLC plate and recording the different molecules that make up each pigment extract from flowers of different colors, we also visualize flower pigments under UV light which allows to detect new separated molecules, which were invisible before. This helps to address the question: what do animals see if they see flowers? Insects have the ability to see different spectral wavelength and thus receive additional information from pigmented flowers.