"The most intense color in the biological world..."

"Iridescent blue and metallic, it literally outshines any other plant or animal substance in the world...."

The plant itself is called Pollia condensata, and researchers have now explained the material magic underlying its marvelous hues: layers of cells that refract light in a manner usually seen in butterfly wings and beetle shells.

"Structural colors come about not by pigments that absorb light, but the way transparent material is arranged on the surface of a substance"....

Structural colors....