'Le Rouge et le Noir': A decline in flavone formation correlates with the rare color of black dahlia (Dahlia variabilis hort.) flowers

Background More than 20,000 cultivars of garden dahlia (Dahlia variabilis hort.) are available showing flower colour from white, yellow and orange to every imaginable hue of red and purple tones. Thereof, only a handful of cultivars are so-called black dahlias showing distinct black-red tints. Flower colour in dahlia is a result of the accumulation of red anthocyanins, yellow anthochlors (6’-deoxychalcones and 4-deoxyaurones) and colourless flavones and flavonols, which act as copigments. White and yellow coloration occurs only if the pathway leading to anthocyanins is incomplete. Not in all cultivars the same step of the anthocyanin pathway is affected, but the lack of dihydroflavonol 4-reductase activity is frequently observed and this seems to be based on the suppression of the transcription factor DvIVS. The hitherto unknown molecular background for black colour in dahlia is here presented.