If you put a white rose in a vase with water and food colouring, the flower slowly absorbs the colour, which is reflected in the petals. A variation on this is to cut the stem in half and divide it between two vases of different colours for a special two-tone effect. But Rachel Weiss Clark of Florida State University has come up with a more ‘mature’ variation: using a dye she sometimes uses in the lab of her supervisor Lea Nienhaus – in this case Rhodamine 610 – you get a fluorescent variation, as shown in the picture. The Rhodamine Rose has been featured on the Chemistry in Pictures page of Chemistry & Engineering News.