Abstract
Carotenoids are the main pigments of yellow chrysanthemums. In the past people used acid solution for yellow color preservation but with time went by the treated chrysanthemums lost their color and became shrank obveriously. For better preservation, we use 4 different mixture of organic solution and test their ability to preserve yellow color of Chrysanthemum sp. The 4 organic solution only different in their weak acid compound, 0.25 % citric acid, 0.25 % boric acid, 0.25 % propanoicacid, 0.25 % boric acid respectively. Organic mixtures containing 0.25 % citric acid or 0.25% boric acid have better preservation on color of chrysanthemum. compared to those immerse in acid solution with little carotenoids leakage, and petals shrank slightly. However, light wavelength absorption test and HPLC indicate that the four organic mixtures did decrease content of carotenoids and isomerize its structure. Hand-cutting section reveals that chromoplasts which originally distribute in cells break out so that carotenoids spreads around in cytosol when chrysanthemums are immersed in the four organic mixtures. If chrysanthemums which are immersed in organic mixtures previously are embedded in Epoxy, the yellow color can be preserved for a longer time. The prescription of our conservation method although caused a decreasing in caroteniods, but to compare those common aqueous solution, it showed a more effective color conservation and morphology that can highly rescue from wither and limped phenomena.