Spectacular rainbow rose to be sold in Britain for the first time
The multi-coloured 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 colours.
That remains a trade secret of their creator, Dutch florist Peter van de Werken, who branched out from creating brightly coloured chrysanthemums.
He buys long-stemmed Vendela roses, dyes them and distributes them around the world.
They do not come cheap. One stem costs £24.49 and a dozen £64.87, more than double the price of 12 red roses.
