Colour stability of the flowers of some rose varieties measured in CIEDE2000

Abstract

A variety trial has been carried out to study the colour stability of the flowers of some modern garden roses, especially of Hungarian varieties. 100 floribundas and polyanthas were observed. Colours of the petals were examined at three phenological stages of flowering: at bud opening and at the phenophase of young open flowers and aged open flowers. The colours were described in the 40° rotated CIE LCh model, and the differences were compared according to the CIEDE2000 standard. Our work has demonstrated Hungarian varieties with excellent colour stability present in each studied class. It has also been verified that the Hungarian bred floribundas had a lower colour shift than the polyanthas or climbing roses. The best Hungarian floribundas were Pest and Reményik Sándor emléke. None of the Western-European roses excelled them in the colour stability. The majority of the best roses are red, orange-red or dark red, which might indicate that the colour stability is not independent of the main hue of flowers.