Red flowered Gentians

[Maggi Young]

The photos by Cliff,  Luit and Philippe in the links I gave are, I am confident,  not  "photoshopped" at all.

Happily very few forumists are in the habit of adding unnecessary "oomph"  to their photos - it is one of the joys of pictures here that they are, with VERY few exceptions,  natural representations of the plants.

[David Nicholson]

Well, more information received but as far as I can see doesn't take my search much further. My friend found a label and it shows Gentiana clusii 'Mefisto'. I have not managed to find anything tangible on Google, The Plant Finder (difficult to find anything on it these days!), or The Plant List, or indeed a search on The Forum. I did find a vague reference below:-

http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/1997-June/026809.html

And an equally vague reference to  'Mefistofilo' below but couldn't find it among the pictures shown. I also searched Plant Finder and Plant List to no avail.

http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/genziana

[Gabriela]

The photos by Cliff,  Luit and Philippe in the links I gave are, I am confident,  not  "photoshopped" at all.

Happily very few forumists are in the habit of adding unnecessary "oomph"  to their photos - it is one of the joys of pictures here that they are, with VERY few exceptions,  natural representations of the plants.

I said 'few' images; my apologies where necessary. I will wait to see an image of this much debated over red Gentiana.

[Maggi Young]

Dear Gabriela, I knew you were talking about images in "outside" links - I was just making a point in case anyone new to the forum thought we were in the habit of seeing heavily manipulated images which would decrease the value of the resource!

[Maggi Young]

Well, more information received but as far as I can see doesn't take my search much further. My friend found a label and it shows Gentiana clusii 'Mefisto'. I have not managed to find anything tangible on Google, The Plant Finder (difficult to find anything on it these days!), or The Plant List, or indeed a search on The Forum. I did find a vague reference below:-

http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/1997-June/026809.html

This is a shot of the plate in Halda's book - colour isn't too good, because  background colour on actual page is a sort of mossy green, which is not showing up at all in the photo.  Anyway, 'Mefisto' is the  purple/pink flower with reddish spot to the outer -  centre right  of the  image as it appears here.

[Tristan_He]

Quite an elastic description of the term 'red' going by that picture Maggi.

By the way, I certainly do some post-processing to photos - cropping, adjusting exposure etc. I expect many others do too. But this isn't 'Photoshopping' in the sense that the aim is not to make it something that it isn't, but to enhance the image, as I and the camera don't always get photos quite right! In that sense they are still natural representations of the plants.

[David Nicholson]

(Attachment Link)
This is a shot of the plate in Halda's book - colour isn't too good, because  background colour on actual page is a sort of mossy green, which is not showing up at all in the photo.  Anyway, 'Mefisto' is the  purple/pink flower with reddish spot to the outer -  centre right  of the  image as it appears here.

Cheers for that Maggi. I didn't see the flowers fully open in my friends garden but, as I remember they were the colour of the stem on that image. Now to find out where his other friend got the plants from.

[Maggi Young]

Reds are one of the most mis-described colours , I reckon. 

The spots on the outside of the trumpets are certainly more obviously red.

Yes, Tristan , it's sometimes important to adjust colour to give a more accurate representation to the eye - but that's a long way from what we would all recognise as the "photo-shopping" phenomenon!

[Jupiter]

Reds are one of the most mis-described colours , I reckon. 

The spots on the outside of the trumpets are certainly more obviously red.

I definitely agree with this Maggi, especially historically in old texts. It seems as if the definition of red has drifted. I have a bunch of seedlings of 'Red' Aubrieta coming into flower here and they are purple. Did you know that the colour we call pink, didn't exist until the late 17th century. Up to that point people spoke of light red or pale red in English. Now we consider it as a completely separate colour in its own right. Fascinating isn't it?

[Maggi Young]

Colour is indeed  fascinating - the perception of tone and hue is very much a subjective one for the most part  but the wide variations  in descriptions, perhaps caused in some measure  by the names given to colours which also  may be picked up differently by each person, to add to the muddle.  Think scarlet, crimson, ruby, for instance!

[johnralphcarpenter]

There's always the RHS Colour Chart, if you have £200 to spare.