bio

Carotenoid

The family of yellow, orange and red-orange pigments behind the colour of carrots and autumn leaves. In a leaf, carotenoids do two real jobs: they absorb the blue-green light chlorophyll catches poorly and hand that energy on to chlorophyll, widening the band a plant can harvest; and under intense light they become a relief valve, bleeding surplus energy away as heat before it can wreck the photosynthetic machinery. This is the crucial difference from anthocyanins — carotenoids genuinely contribute to the feeding, while anthocyanins do not.