Plants reared from seed, in darkness, are white, or approaching to yellow. Light, on the other hand, in acting on their colours, acts at the same time on their form.
Plants which grow in darkness make, it is true, long shoots from joint to joint: but the stems between two joints are thus longer than they should be; no side stems are produced, and the metamorphosis of the plant does not take place.
Light, on the other hand, places it at once in an active state; the plant appears green, and the course of the metamorphosis proceeds uninterruptedly to the period of reproduction.
We know that the leaves of the stem are only preparations and pre-significations of the instruments of florification and fructification, and accordingly we can already see colours in the leaves of the stem which, as it were, announce the flower from afar, as is the case in the amaranthus.
There are white flowers whose petals have wrought or refined themselves to the greatest purity; there are coloured ones, in which the elementary hues may be said to fluctuate to and fro. There are some which, in tending to the higher state, have only partially emancipated themselves from the green of the plant.