'Green above, paler below': Descriptions in the literature of the colour in trees from southwest Australia

Abstract

This paper outlines descriptions of colour in the literature pertaining to the flora of the South-western Australian Floristic Region, comparing pre-settlement exploration by Dutch, French and English voyagers with modern general texts. It was found that colour has been and continues to be poorly described, preventing any analysis of the biological diversity of colour to enable comparison across or between floras or species. Forthcoming work on more accurate colour description using the Natural Color System of Sweden is foreshadowed. © Royal Society of Western Australia 2007.