荷蘭花商培育出彩虹玫瑰 單支售價24.49磅

Red ones mean passion and romance, yellow ones speak of friendship, and pink can express your thanks.

If you're feeling a little confused - or you want to keep a lady guessing - you could try sending these roses instead.

The multi-colored flowers, known as rainbow roses or happy roses, are the latest thing in quirky gifts.

They start life as cream roses, but the heads take on hues from various food dyes placed in their water one at a time and sucked up the stems.

We know the process takes between 12 and 24 hours, but not how the different petals turn out different colors.

That remains a trade secret of their creator, Dutch florist Peter van de Werken, who branched out from creating brightly colored chrysanthemums.

He buys long-stemmed Vendela roses, dyes them and distributes them around the world. They still have their sweet smell and the flowers will last as long as normal roses, but the leaves may wither sooner.

More than a million were sold in a year, with key markets in Japan, Italy and particularly Sweden, where blue and yellow varieties mimic the national flag. Britons can buy them at online florist .

However, they do not come cheap. One stem costs £24.49 and a dozen £64.87, more than double the price of 12 red roses.

So maybe they do send a simple message after all - you're worth it.

紅玫瑰代表熱情和浪漫，黃玫瑰象徵友誼，粉玫瑰則表達謝意。

如果你拿不定主意，或者想讓一位女士猜猜你的心思，那麼不妨試試彩虹玫瑰。

這種彩色的玫瑰花被稱爲彩虹玫瑰或幸福玫瑰，是最新出現的一種奇特的禮物品種。

彩虹玫瑰由白玫瑰變化而來，具體過程就是讓白玫瑰的莖部分次吸收培育水中不同顏色的食用色素，然後傳送到花瓣上。

這一過程耗時12至24小時，但不同的花瓣如何呈現出不同的顏色，就不得而知了。

這是發明者、荷蘭花商彼得•範德威爾肯的商業機密。在培育出彩虹玫瑰之前，他還曾培育出了彩色的菊花。

威爾肯先買來長莖芬德拉玫瑰，將其染色，之後分銷到世界各地。彩虹玫瑰仍帶有香甜的氣味，花期和普通玫瑰一樣長，但葉子可能會很快掉落。

彩虹玫瑰一年的銷量達100多萬支，主要銷往日本、意大利和瑞典。其中以瑞典最爲突出，銷往該國的品種藍黃相間，酷似瑞典國旗。現在英國人可通過在線售花網站購買彩虹玫瑰。

但彩虹玫瑰售價不菲，單支售價爲24.49英鎊，12支售價64.87英鎊，是同等數量紅玫瑰售價的兩倍多。

所以也許它們的確傳達了這樣一個簡單的信息：你值得擁有。

Vocabulary:

head：any dense flower cluster or inflorescence（莖梗頂端的葉球，頭狀花序）

food dye：any substance that is added to food or drink to change its color（食用染料，食用色素）

branch out：to expand or extend, as business activities, pursuits, interests, etc.（涉足新工作，拓展新業務）