Hi Mike, I should have written, "low light levels during flower development result in lighter flowers." My use of the word "faded" was inappropriate. I intentionally avoided any mention of flower aging or senescence in my previous comments since those topics confound the developmental causes of flower color intensity. It's not that your observation is "opposite" of my comment. Your observation during the aging and senescence of the flowers is a different topic during a different developmental stage of the flower than what I was talking about before. I was not talking about changes in flower color intensity with regard to flower age or senescence. For more info on flower senescence, I refer you to the chapter, "Physiology of flower senescence," in "Plant cell death processes," co-authored by yours truly. As you point out, Moraea, like many other genera, has flowers that fade in color intensity with age. If you could manage to flower the same Moraea species in question under lower light conditions with the same tissue temperature, the resulting flowers would very likely be lighter in color when they first open compared to flowers of plants grown under higher light levels. With regard to your observation, "The more sun the plant gets, the faster they fade," this is not at all surprising and you may be observing an increased rate in floral senescence due to higher temperatures since the floral tissue itself is likely warmer in full sun, even if the apparent air temperature remains the same. As we all know, flowers senesce faster at warmer temperatures. Also, the flowers in full sun could be lighter in general from the innate higher temperatures associated with being in full sun. I have no idea how sensitive Moraea flowers are to temperature with regard to color intensity. Without a number of carefully controlled experiments, it's difficult to say which environmental factor is the most important at any point during development for any given species. The separate effects of light and temperature are often difficult to delineate without the proper controls especially if one's light source is the sun. People's anecdotal observations are always biased toward the light that they can see. Temperature itself is invisible and is frequently one of the most misunderstood and under appreciated environmental factors in the horticulture. Nathan At 02:03 PM 5/13/2015, you wrote: >Nathan wrote: > > >Not surprisingly, low light levels result in more faded flowers. > >Interesting. I've had the exact opposite effect with many Moraea species -- >they open with a fairly intense color that fades over time. So, for example, >a flower will open yellow and fade to off-white. The more sun the plant >gets, the faster they fade. > >Mike >San Jose, CA