1242. As the corolla only, and not the calyx, is the proper light-organ, so also will it only obey the light in the coloration.
1243. The corolla can no longer be coloured green, for it is no longer a leaf. Now that which obtains another signification, which passes over into another element, must, with the function, lay aside also the old colour. The corolla is besides the perishing, fading leaf; as this begins to turn yellow or red in the autumn, so does the corolla immediately at its origin. It is a born autumnal leaf.
1244. The whole plant must be regarded as a green synthetic colour; the corolla as the analysis of the Green.
1245. The first division of the Green is Yellow and Blue. These two colours are the first which make their appearance in the corolla.
1246. Yellow is the earth-colour, corresponds to the root, and consequently indicates the lowest colour. Yellow corollæ are less developed than those which are otherwise coloured. The corollæ of spring flowers are therefore yellow; so likewise is the middle of the corolla, as is specially exemplified in the disk of the Syngenesious plants.
1247. Blue is the second colour of corollæ in the scale of dignity, or rank. Blue is displayed on the better developed corolla, and is frequently the colour in the rays of the Syngenesiæ. Blue belongs to the temperate zones.
1248. If Yellow and Blue be the divided Green of the leaves, the complementary colour to that of the corollæ must thus remain in the trunk. The trunks of plants having blue corollæ should therefore be yellow; those with yellow corollæ should furnish blue colouring matters, like the Woad.
1249. Red is the third corolla-colour, the true light-colour, in the which properly all corollæ have been immersed; and if they exhibit any other colours, these should be viewed only as instances of aberration from Red. The Reds are the splendid colours, which develop themselves in the middle of summer; in flaming red mantles are the flowers of the torrid zone veiled.
1250. Finally, the form triumphs over the colour. The light has in Red done everything which it could do for colour, having allured as it were all the colours out of the plant; it now, on the contrary, bestows its attention upon the form and delicacy of the substance. The white colour makes its appearance in antithesis to the red, and is mostly associated with very delicate structure.
1251. The cells of the red corollæ are replete with starch-granules, but those of the white are quite empty. The yellow and blue corollæ range in the middle. Red is a superabundance, White a deficiency, of nutriment. The most noble and beautiful corollæ, as well as the lowest also, may therefore be white. White and red are the general colours for all families of plants, but yellow and blue are special colours. In general the trunk is green, the corolla white, the seed black. The mediate stages are red, yellow, and blue.