Jeanne Henault, age 12, of West Warwick, Rhode Island, for her question:

How do flowers get their colors?

Flowers contain chemicals called pigments. And the most plentiful pigment in the plant world is green chlorophyll. It is there, even though you do not see it, in the merry marigold and the blushing rose. Flowers contain other pigments that mask their chlorophyll and add other colors to their faces. The flowers can choose their colors from three or more groups of ehemical pigments. The color they choose is somewhat modified by green and yellow chlorophyll that happens to be present in the petal cells.

The marigold makes up her face with carotene chemical, the same pigment that colors a carrot. Many red flowers use one or more of the vivid anthocyanin pigments, the same chemicals that color the beet. The modest violet dips into the same anthocyanin paint box. Its colors range from red to purple and blue. A group of yellow pigments called xanthophylls are common in small algae. But the yellows of the field and garden flowers usually come from the chlorophylls and the anthocyanins.