The silver, neon-pink, near-black, and velvet looks of today's collector anthuriums come from three basic tricks: trapped air, pigments, and dome-shaped surface cells. Below is a very simplified summary of these processes.

Silver color: trapped air, not pigment

The silver on these leaves isn't paint or pigment. It's caused by tiny pockets of air trapped just under the leaf's surface. When light hits those air pockets, it bounces back out instead of being absorbed, the same reason snow, foam, and crushed ice look white even though water is clear.

The more air pockets a leaf has, and the more evenly spread they are, the more silver it looks. Because it's built into the leaf's physical structure, this kind of silver is usually stable and won't wash out the way a pigment might. Botanists call this "air-space" or "structural" variegation; collectors often call it "blister variegation," because the leaf's skin lifts slightly off the green tissue beneath. In anthuriums, the silver usually follows the veins and spreads outward from them, but that isn't true of every plant: in satin pothos or watermelon peperomia, it appears as spots or between the veins. Why anthuriums follow the veins isn't well studied.

Pink and red color: a natural pigment over a bright base

The pink comes from a real pigment called anthocyanin, the same family of natural colors found in red cabbage, blueberries, and red autumn leaves. Many plants make lots of it in brand-new leaves, which is why fresh growth often comes in red or purple and turns greener as it matures.

Scientists think it may help protect tender young leaves from too much light, though they still debate exactly why plants make it. When this pink pigment sits over a bright, silvery layer, it can show up much brighter, giving the striking contrast that many collectors love.

Near-black color: two pigments stacked

There is no black pigment in leaves. Near-black foliage usually comes from packing in large amounts of two pigments at once: green chlorophyll, which absorbs red and blue light, and red anthocyanin, which absorbs green. Together they soak up almost all visible light, so very little bounces back to your eye.

Scientists confirmed this in black mondo grass, a popular black-leaved garden plant, whose dark leaves hold more of both pigments than green ones. Velvet adds to the effect: textured leaves reflect less light than glossy ones, the same reason black velvet fabric looks blacker than black satin. Black leaves are rare in the wild and more common in gardens, because breeders select for them.

Velvet sheen: a carpet of microscopic lenses

The soft, velvety look comes from the shape of the cells on the leaf's surface. Instead of being flat, these cells are rounded or cone-shaped, like a carpet of microscopic domes.

Each dome acts like a tiny lens, focusing light into the leaf. Botanists long assumed this helps plants on the dim rainforest floor; newer work suggests the lenses matter most for the brief patches of direct sun that break through the canopy. As a side effect, the domes scatter light in a way our eyes see as velvet from above and a satiny shine from the side. That texture also softens and deepens the colors, which is part of why these leaves look so rich.

Leaf texture is really a spectrum set by the shape of those surface cells. Flat cells give a glossy, mirror-like leaf, like a supermarket flamingo flower; strongly cone-shaped cells give true velvet. Collectors call the in-between "sub-velvet": gently domed cells that give a soft, satin look, common in hybrids between a velvety parent and a glossy one.

Some notes relating to growing conditions

NOTE: The research listed below explains these effects in plants generally and is not necessarily specific to anthuriums. Treat these as general rules extrapolated from science research, not proven results for anthuriums.

How light and temperature change color

Light and temperature push the two main pigments in opposite directions, which is why growers' advice can sound contradictory.

Lower light, darker green. In dim light, plants pack more chlorophyll into their leaves to catch what light there is, so shade-grown leaves often look deeper green. A 2021 study on a red-flowered anthurium found leaf chlorophyll rose under low light and fell under high light.

Brighter light, more pink and red. Anthocyanin works the other way: more light generally means more red pigment — up to a point. Studies on Aglaonema, another aroid houseplant, and on red-leaf lettuce found leaves turned redder as light increased and greener when shaded. Very bright light can wash the red back out. The darkest leaves need plenty of both pigments, so growers chasing near-black foliage are balancing the two.

Choosing a grow light. You are choosing how the leaf grows and how it colors.

Pink or purple lights mix red and blue LEDs and skip most of the green. The red is mainly for growth (bigger, faster leaves). The blue helps compactness and red pigment.

White grow lights already include red, blue, and green. Green is useful for growth — it reaches deeper into the leaf than red or blue. Cooler white has more blue, so leaves often stay a bit more compact and may show more redness. Warmer white has less blue, so leaves often expand a bit more.

White plus extra red and blue is a white light with some dedicated red and/or blue LEDs added. Extra red is mostly a growth boost. Extra blue is the color and compactness boost. White lights already contain both, so this is a stronger mix, not a different kind of light. In red-leaf lettuce, added blue raised red pigment more than added red did.

Grow lights versus a regular light bulb

A regular bulb is made so a room looks bright to people. A grow light is made to feed the leaf. Those are different jobs.

Household bulbs are sold by how bright they look to human eyes (lumens). Eyes notice green and yellow most, so that number overweights those colors. Leaves mainly use visible blue, green, and red light to grow. Grow lights are built to put more of that plant-usable light onto the leaf, and they are rated that way instead of by lumens.

A bright white household LED can still grow a plant some, because white LEDs already include blue, green, and red. The usual gap is that a room bulb sends fewer of those plant-usable photons onto the leaf, and the mix is aimed at lighting a room, not at leaf growth or leaf color.

This is not mainly about ultraviolet (UVA or UVB). Ordinary white LED bulbs typically put out little or no UV. Plants do not need UV to grow: photosynthesis is driven by visible light, and researchers have grown crops indoors under red and blue LEDs with no UV at all.

UV is extra. In some leafy crops, a little UVA raised red pigment about as much as extra blue did. Stronger UVB raised red pigment even more, but it also slowed growth. Too much UVB can damage tissue. Sunlight has UV; most indoor lights do not, unless the fixture is built with UV LEDs on purpose.

Cooler temperatures. In many plants, mild cool conditions boost anthocyanin and heat suppresses it; in one study, seedlings grown at 17°C made more red pigment than those grown at 28°C. The effect isn't universal. Tropical anthuriums are cold-sensitive, so "cooler" means mild, not chilly.

Sources

Silver color

  • Zhang, J.-H., Zeng, J.-C., Wang, X.-M., Chen, S.-F., Albach, D.C. & Li, H.-Q. (2020). A revised classification of leaf variegation types. Flora 272: 151703. Sorts variegated leaves into five types and describes air-space variegation as the most common.
  • Pao, S.-H., Liu, J.-W., Yang, J.-Y., Chesson, P. & Sheue, C.-R. (2020). Uncovering the mechanisms of novel foliar variegation patterns caused by structures and pigments. Taiwania 65(1): 74–80. Explains how silvery leaf surfaces in Taiwanese plants, including Begonia, come from leaf structure.
  • Bhardwaj, A., Agarwal, D., Bhatt, U., Parihar, S. & Soni, V. (2025). The secrets of variegated leaves: Molecular to physiological and ecological insights. Flora 331: 152815. Recent review of how leaves become variegated.
  • Soltau, U., Dötterl, S. & Liede-Schumann, S. (2009). Leaf variegation in Caladium steudneriifolium (Araceae): a case of mimicry? Evolutionary Ecology 23: 503–512. Painted-on variegation reduced leaf-miner egg-laying on this Ecuadorian aroid.

Silver and pink together

  • La Rocca, N., Pupillo, P., Puppi, G. & Rascio, N. (2014). Erythronium dens-canis L. (Liliaceae): an unusual case of change of leaf mottling. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 74: 108–117. Shows red-brown patches come from anthocyanin in the cell layer under the surface, while silvery flecks come from air spaces under the upper epidermis.

Pink and red color

  • Gould, K.S. (2004). Nature's Swiss army knife: the diverse protective roles of anthocyanins in leaves. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology 2004(5): 314–320. Free, widely cited review of why leaves make red pigment.
  • Lee, D.W. & Gould, K.S. (2002). Why leaves turn red. American Scientist 90(6): 524–531. A short, readable magazine article by two botanists.

Near-black color

  • Hatier, J.-H.B., Clearwater, M.J. & Gould, K.S. (2013). The functional significance of black-pigmented leaves: photosynthesis, photoprotection and productivity in Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'. PLoS ONE 8(6): e67850. Free to read; black mondo grass leaves get their color from very high levels of both anthocyanin and chlorophyll.
  • Wolff, K. & Pucker, B. (2025). Dark side of anthocyanin pigmentation. Plant Biology 27(6): 935–947. Recent review of how plants produce very dark pigmentation.

Light and temperature

  • Photosynthetic responses of Anthurium × 'Red' under different light conditions (2021). Plants 10(5): 857. Leaf chlorophyll increased under low light and decreased under high light.
  • Influence of light intensity on chloroplast development and pigment accumulation in the wild-type and etiolated mutant plants of Anthurium andraeanum 'Sonate' (2018). Plant Signaling & Behavior. Light intensity changed leaf color, chlorophyll, and anthocyanin in anthurium seedlings.
  • Effect of light intensity on anthocyanin synthesis assessed using leaves of Aglaonema commutatum. Red pigment in this aroid's leaves increased with more light, up to a point.
  • Transcriptome profiling of anthocyanin-related genes reveals effects of light intensity on anthocyanin biosynthesis in red leaf lettuce (2018). Lettuce looked greener at 40 and redder at 100 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹ of light.
  • Zhu, Y., Patil, B.S. & Zhen, S. (2025). From ultraviolet-B to red photons: effects of end-of-production supplemental light on anthocyanins, phenolics, ascorbic acid, and biomass production in red leaf lettuce. PLoS ONE. Blue light raised red pigment more than red light at the same intensity. UVB raised pigment most of all, but also reduced shoot weight.
  • High ambient temperature represses anthocyanin biosynthesis through degradation of HY5 (2017). Frontiers in Plant Science. Seedlings at 28°C made less red pigment than those at 17°C.
  • Kusuma, P., Pattison, P.M. & Bugbee, B. (2020). From physics to fixtures to food: current and potential LED efficacy. Horticulture Research 7: 56. Red + blue was the early grow-light mix; white LEDs also include green, which reaches deeper into the leaf and canopy. Lumens-per-watt is a human-vision rating; plant lighting is counted as photosynthetic photons from about 400–700 nm.
  • Park, Y. & Runkle, E.S. (2018). Spectral effects of light-emitting diodes on plant growth, visual color quality, and photosynthetic photon efficacy: White versus blue plus red radiation. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0202386. Seedling growth under white was similar to red + blue at the same brightness.
  • Meng, Q. & Runkle, E.S. Michigan State University floriculture. White vs red + blue LEDs. Warm-white light was not worse for lettuce growth than red + blue; more blue tends to make smaller, thicker leaves.
  • McCree, K.J. (1972). The action spectrum, absorptance and quantum yield of photosynthesis in crop plants. Agricultural Meteorology 9: 191–216. Mapped how leaves use different colors; the practical plant-growth band is about 400–700 nm. Also notes that lumens/lux measure brightness to the eye, not photosynthesis.
  • Bugbee, B. Problems with foot-candles, lux and lumens. Greenhouse Product News. Human-eye ratings overweight green and yellow; plant lighting should be counted as photosynthetic photons.
  • Massa, G.D., Kim, H.-H., Wheeler, R.M. & Mitchell, C.A. (2008). Plant productivity in response to LED lighting. HortScience 43(7): 1951–1956. Wheat completed a life cycle under red LEDs alone; adding some blue made larger plants. No UV was required.
  • Global Lighting Association (2012). Optical and photobiological safety of LED, CFLs and other high efficiency general lighting sources. Ordinary LED lamps sold for rooms typically emit no UV; compact fluorescents emit only a very small amount.
  • Kelly, N. & Runkle, E.S. (2023). End-of-production ultraviolet A and blue light similarly increase lettuce coloration and phytochemical concentrations. HortScience 58(5): 525–531. In red-leaf lettuce, added UVA and added blue raised redness and anthocyanin about the same.

Velvet sheen

  • Bone, R.A., Lee, D.W. & Norman, J.M. (1985). Epidermal cells functioning as lenses in leaves of tropical rain-forest shade plants. Applied Optics 24(10): 1408–1412. Models how curved surface cells focus light; Anthurium warocqueanum was one of the species measured.
  • Vogelmann, T.C. et al. (1996). Focusing of light by leaf epidermal cells. Physiologia Plantarum. Measured lens-like focusing directly and found it in many of 47 species surveyed.
  • Brodersen, C.R. & Vogelmann, T.C. (2007). Do epidermal lens cells facilitate the absorptance of diffuse light? American Journal of Botany 94(7): 1061–1066. Explains the velvet look of cone-shaped cells and found the lenses don't help capture diffuse light.

Book for general readers

  • Lee, D. (2007). Nature's Palette: The Science of Plant Color. University of Chicago Press. A botanist who spent decades studying tropical leaves explains plant pigments and structural color for non-scientists.