What Is The Rarest Colour In Flower Displays?

A floral designer relies only on the colours, shades and textures found in nature to create such phenomenal and meaningful displays for any occasion.

This means that some colours are more popular and easier to find than others, simply due to natural selection; pollinating insects are drawn to bright colours within their visible spectrum, meaning that red and white flowers are more popular depending on the region.

It is also more difficult for a plant to produce molecules that absorb enough energy to capture the red part of the spectrum and thus appear as a darker shade such as purple or blue. Plants do not have a direct way of turning blue otherwise.

Indeed, the rarest colour of all, and a colour that is rare throughout nature is blue, with less than ten per cent of the flowering plant species in the world producing blue flowers.

This has, in part, made blue a highly desirable and fascinating colour throughout history, not only for the pollinators who see the shade so vividly but for people as well. Ultramarine as a pigment, made from ground-up lapis lazuli, was for thousands of years worth literally more than its weight in gold.

In nature, the problem with the colour blue is that it takes so much energy for a plant to produce blue flowers that they only start to emerge in places that are filled with competition between different plants.

Spring meadows and wildflower gardens, for example, are far more likely to have blue flowers than mountainous regions where pollinators fear to fly.

Because of this, as well as the rarity of blue animals and blue minerals, the colour has become exceptionally fascinating and highly desirable, often symbolic of longing and desire.

Another surprisingly rare colour is green flowers, primarily because pollinators struggle to differentiate the flower from the rest of the plant. Deep purple and black flowers are also exceedingly rare.