Am I the only devotee of chestnut blossom in its close-up form? My interest started in about 1992, when I observed the phenomenon in Brent Lodge Park. After that, an illness prevented me from going out and about much. Walking the earth and admiring the handiwork of its creator (so to speak) became a defiant act of imagination, as opposed to a real activity. So now, when the season and opportunity coincide, I can’t get enough of these flowers, gazing in wonder and pondering their mystery.
So let me ask. Why do adjacent blossoms have different colours? If Darwin is right, there is some evolutionary advantage. I wish I knew how to find out.
Many flowers that are attractive to bees have an irregular shape that provides a landing platform. They also have flower markings that guide bees in to land on the part of the flower where it can deliver and collect pollen grains. Horse-chestnut tree flowers are cream colored with a yellow honey-guide patch on the petals. When nectar dries up, the yellow patch turns pink, becoming invisible to bees. Bees visits only the flowers that need pollination. from a defunct website Massachusetts Agriculture In The Classroom
But I don’t think this is the full story, because there are at least three colours as in my illustration, and they are like this from the start. I have not seen any blossom clusters where all are yellow or all are pink.
a wayfarer’s notes 
They really are pretty. There must be different species of chestnuts, and some don't flower that way?As a kid I saw chestnuts on the ground a lot, but never saw anything like these photographs. Come to think of it, if I had, maybe I wouldn't even have made the connection…
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Yes, this is the horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum as opposed to the edible chestnut, Castanea sativa. All the horse chestnuts I have seen flower in this way, even though there are considerable variations in overall coloration and format of leaves and flowers.
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“Is it just evolution? Why do adjacent blossoms have different colours? If Darwin is right, there is some evolutionary advantage.”There are a lot of plants who's flowers open one colour and change to another (Lantana springs readily to mind). I dare say there is a rational explanation, but I have a bigger problem with the way the question is put, as if the fact that you personally can't explain it means there is some deeper mystery involved. I really don't want to come over too bombastic here (this being my first comment on your very fine blog and all) but I don't understand why non biologists seem to think they should be able to imagine what that explanation is. Biology and ecology are huge and ongoing areas of study that take years to really get a grip on and yet laymen look at nature – find it perplexing (quite rightly), and declare (or at least imply) that there must be something ‘other’ going on (and then of course one man's opinion is as good as the next.)I find radios a complete mystery. Why don’t all the voices get jumbled up in the air? And how do they find their way down a bit of metal into my receiver? I can’t imagine. But I don’t feel inclined to invoke the spirit of radio communications. I’m sure if I studied physics it would all seem a lot more plausible. I do have an MSc in ecology and I don’t know why Horse Chestnut flowers change colour but I can imagine the sorts of mechanisms involved. (Oh, and I still find it wonderful by the way.)What troubles me about this ‘mystery’ is that once people give it a name (God, Spirit, Cosmic Ordering, the Intelligent Designer) they think they’ve explained something when in fact all they’ve done is give their ignorance a name. 'Well how else do you explain it?' they ask – as if that counts as evidence. As if we should know everything by now, if we’re ever going to.It’s ok to say you don’t know. Accept your ignorance. Check out some ideas if you want to. Enjoy the spectacle. That's what I say.
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Steve, I'm delighted you have raised such a challenge, which no one ever has in the five years of this blog. I'm not talking about the chestnut blossom but the non-scientific reaction to wonders perceived with the senses.To me, the scientific intellect is not something we are born with but is inculcated through education. It is quite a rarefied thing. One of my main purposes in the blog is to connect with my primitive self and not the scientifically-educated one. Some people would call this a “child-like” sense of wonder, but unless one has received the requisite education, formally at school or through the osmosis of ambient culture, one will stay with the sense of childlike wonder all one's life.It may be that, as you maybe are hinting, a person with this subjective response to life, in the “wild”—of a tribe, say, who hasn't come into contact with civilisation—might be prone to credulousness when a missionary comes along giving mysteries a name such as God etc.But to me (someone who has attempted to go back to the wild in soul at least) the missionary preaching God is rather like the scientist preaching scientific method. Both take me beyond the visible, beyond my senses, beyond my delight in unanswered mysteries. Back to the chestnut blossoms. I have never seen them open one colour and change to another, much as I have tried over the years. They always seem to come in triplets, from the start, as I said in my post.I do prefer staying ignorant than giving my ignorance a name. I'm very happy not to know everything, but if there is an answer I would like to know it.In fact, though we both appear to enjoy arguing, we may be on the same side.
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