After thirteen long years of research, the Japanese Suntory company have finally perfected the mythical blue rose. For a long time, blue roses were merely the stuff of legends, signifying mystery and were believed to be able to grant the owner youth. Breeders have long attempted to create a blue rose through cross-breeding and genetic engineering, but rose petals lacked the enzyme needed to create a blue pigment and so they consistently failed.

But now, the myth has become a reality. The very first real blue roses are now on display in Japan, and will go on sale to the public next year. Of course you can expect these roses to cost you much more than your average rose, simply because they're new, they're rare, and a lot of people will want them.

So how were they created? Japanese Suntory worked with the Australian company Florigene, who took the delphinidin gene (which creates the blue color) from a petunia. They took that gene and inserted it into a mauve roses known as the Cardinal de Richelieu, and the resulting flower was a dark burgundy color due to an excess of the blue pigment cyanidin. They then used RNAi technology to reduce the cyandin pigment, which eventually resulted in the final blue roses which was unveiled today at the annual Flower Expo in Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan.