Blue Flowers anyone?

I needed to prune the roses outside my dining room as they have grown into a rather peculiar shape. Sadly this means I ended up cutting a number of flowers from the plant. Rather than put the roses into a vase to decorate the table (boring!) we thought it was the perfect time to try a mini science experiment with the flowers.

 First we took a glass of water and put food colouring in to make a dark blue mixture. The we put two cut roses into the glass and sat back to watch. A few moments watching the colour change when I remembered that I was planning on taking before and after photos. Oh well - this is a minute or two after the rose and blue water met for the first time. There is already a very faint tinge of blue on the petals.

 This is our rose after 5 minutes. The veins inside the rose are now very clear and we can see the path the water takes as the flower sucks it up. I am rather surprised at how fast the colour  changed with the rose. I wonder if it would do anything to a pink rose - I am sure my pink rose bush wouldn't mind me taking a few roses for the kids to play with.

And here is a photo 6 hours later.