WORLD’S FIRST ‘BLUE’ ROSE “Applause”

Roses appear naturally in many shades of red, pink, yellow and white, but lack the natural ability to produce blue pigments.
Australian company Florigene the researchers took the delphinidin gene, which creates the blue colour, from a petunia. They then inserted it into a mauve rose called the Cardinal de Richelieu.
Named “Applause,” the rose is genetically modified to synthesize delphinidin, a pigment found in most blue flowers. The rose was first released in in Tokyo in 2009, after 20 years of research by Suntory, a Japanese company that also distills whisky, and its Australian subsidiary, Florigene (now Suntory Flowers).
Suntory announced the rose will be for sale at select florists in North America, While the flower might appear more silver-purple than sky-blue, Applause is the nearest to a true blue rose yet. The flowers have a gene from a petunia inserted in them
The resultant flower was a dark burgundy colour due to an excess of the blue pigment cyanidin.