Flower Power

By Harriet Barovick, Michelle Derrow, Tam Gray, Daniel Levy, Lina Lofaro, David Spitz, Flora Tartakovsky and Chris Taylor

BLUE GENES Welcome to the brave new greenhouse. Last week Florigene, a biotech company based in Australia, launched its line of violet carnations, Moonshadow, which do not exist in nature but were genetically engineered using a gene from petunias. The company plans to release a black carnation (made with an eggplant gene) next year and eventually hopes to create blue-hued roses. Maybe one day it will even make people into Smurfs.