Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1884 — Dyeing Cut Flowers. [ARTICLE]

Dyeing Cut Flowers.

Many uses have been found for dyes outside the texile kingdom, but perhaps the most remarkable discovery for their utility has just been made by an English chemist. It has for a long time been known that the color of growing flowers can be altered bv simply mixing a little stuff with the mold in the -flower-pot. No one, however, jias hitherto thought oi changing the color of flowers when cut. Tlxere are in London many artists whose business it is \to give to birds finer feathers than nature has allowed them, and they have now a counterpart in flowers. Mr. Nesbit, a distinguished botanist, has lonnd tlxat by simply soaking the stems of exit flowers in a weak dye solution, their color can be altered at will, without the perfume or freshness being destroyed. Most beautiful effects are produced by prepared lakes. Singular to say, flowers refuse to absorb certain colors, while -they dispose of others in different manners. It placed in » mixed solution they inake a complete analysis, and some lilies that had been treated with purple showed distinct red and blue veins/the colors having been divided in the process of absorption. Mr. Nesbit is still engaged in his investigations.