Explanation: Note:This is Rose of Ra info only. Lilies and Sand Blooms have their own genetics subpages, and seem to work differently.
The color of Roses of Ra are based on a Cyan - Magenta - Yellow scale (not RGB). Primary colors are made by a mixture of C,Y or M (Green = equal parts Cyan and Yellow, Red = equal parts Yellow and Cyan, Blue = equal parts Cyan and Magenta). There are up to five 'levels' of each Cyan, Magenta or Yellow color in each flower; the higher the level the darker the respective color, C, Y, or M.
The traits and colors are imbedded in each other and are present in one gene 'string.' Repeated stressing of basic Roses have shown this to be true and also have shown that petal traits are composed of 3 'letters' while stamen/leaf traits are composed of 2 'letters' and size traits are composed of 5 'letters.' This means that if a color or size is right on the end of the string, stressing it once disrupts the trait right on that end, but stressing it, for example, 5 times restores the trait (because it essentially falls off and gets re-attached to the other end of the string). For example, this is how stressed breeding works:
Normal rose (a giant) looks like: GIANTxxxxx
1 stress left makes it move the string one left: IANTxxxxxG
5 stresses left make the string move 5 left: xxxxxGIANT
Five letter designations (ABCDE) are sufficient to explain the color system in roses. For petals, four of the five letters are used to determine petal trait and color - A,B,C and D. The letter A indicates that it is a upper or lower petal gene. B, C, and D indicate the colors Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta, in that order. A double letter of the color needs to exist in the string/genome for a color to be expressed on the petals. The position of A with regard to the two double letters (BB,CC or DD) determines whether the color ends up on the upper/top or lower/bottom petal; A in front is a lower petal signifier, A behind is an upper petal signifier. The exact petal genes are therefore, ABB=cyan lowers, ACC=yellow lowers, ADD=magenta lowers, BBA=cyan uppers, CCA=yellow uppers, DDA= magenta uppers.
Leaf and Stamen trait is similarly determined, with color being represented by one letter and the letter E being used as a signifier, in order to determine whether the color 'reads' to a stamen or a leaf trait. Three letters are used to signify cyan, magenta and yellow: A,B,C. The letter E following the color letter denotes a stamen trait, while the letter E preceding the color letter denotes a leaf trait. Therefore, AE=cyan stamen, BE=Magenta stamen, CE=Yellow stamen, EA=cyan leaf, EB=magenta leaf, EC=yellow leaf.
Summary: *remember that these can and are imbedded inside one another. (petals= B cyan, C yellow, D magenta. stamen/leaf= A cyan, B magenta, C yellow. **Only C = yellow does not change between the two letter meaning sets. Keep this in mind).
ABB = cyan lower petal ACC = yellow lower petal ADD = magenta lower petal
BBA = cyan upper petal CCA = yellow upper petal DDA = magenta upper petal
AE = cyan stamen BE = magenta stamen DE = yellow stamen (used to be CE - which is wrong)
EA = cyan leaves EB = magenta leaves ED = yellow leaves
Giant is ABDCE, dwarf gene is ECDBA. (switched D and C - used to be ABCDE/EDCBA)
Rose of Ra genomes: (Qetesh: all genomes rechecked and are 100% corrected. Onion skin is now 100% right - the only oddity that remains is how ABB segments are formed from OS/RD and OS/WG hybrids (lower cyan).**C and D reversed for stamen/leaf segments (6/4/04 - Qetesh). I'm checking out whether EA/AE is the correct designation for cyan stamen/leaf as a possible explanation. The large number of D's present in the genomes (instead of C's) also explain why so many magenta hybrids result from crosses of the basic flowers.
| White Giant | ABDCEDEDED | show |
| Goldenleaves | EDCEDCEDC | show |
| Blood Heart | BEBEBEBE | show |
| Pantomime | DDABDDABDDABDDAB | show |
| Hatch's Bud | ADDACCACCBBACCACCAEAEDED | show |
| Onion Skin | ADDADDACCEAEDEAEDEAEDEBEB | show |
| Red Dwarf | ADDADDACCACCACCBEBEDEDEDECDBA | show |
The estimates of leaf colors are off when you are looking at them in game, as leaf colors appear 1 shade lighter (esp yellow). I.e. a 3 level yellow in the leaf looks like 2 level yellow, but can be shown to be 3 yellows by stressing.*
(Qetesh: all genomes confirmed by my stresses: OS (old genome) was ADDADDACCDEBECEAECEEAECEECEAEA, which was at least half wrong. new is correct) (Djehuty: crossing and stressing reveals the original BH genome to be backwards (it is not EBEBEBEB but rather as posted above now)
There are some oddities that have cropped up along the way which are not consistent with these genomes (which are correct based on stresses. See Odd Hybrids
gene.cgi Simulator
A gene->color generator can be found at http://www.silverchat.com/~silver/atitd/gene.cgi . Tries to encompass the above information (as of January 13th) as well as whatever silver could clean from forums and chats.
gene.cgi uses the notation above, which is:
ABB - cyan lower petals; BBA - cyan upper petals ACC - yellow lower petals; CCA - yellow upper petals ADD - magenta lower petals; DDA - magenta upper petals EA - cyan leaves; AE - cyan stamen EB - magenta leaves; BE - magenta stamen ED - yellow leaves; DE - yellow stamen ABDCE - giant; ECDBA - dwarf
(6/4/04, Qetesh - gene.cgi needs to be updated).
In addition to gene.cgi, silver has also written http://www.silverchat.com/~silver/atitd/gene2.cgi which shows all possible crosses between two flower genomes assuming the left parent contributes some left part of its genome to the left side of the child genome - though it is unclear that all possible crosses can actually result in the game.
A recent addition to gene.cgi ('show all stresses') and gene2.cgi ('show parallel stresses') shows what happens if you stress a flower left and right to length of its genome (or compares several genomes in the parallel stress case - which can be used to decide which of several genomes with the same phenotype was actually picked).
Finally, the 125 possible flower colors using Sigil's recommendation of 64 for how much each "step" of cyan, magenta, or yellow is worth is shown here: http://www.silverchat.com/~silver/atitd/rose_colors.html . When using a color-finder to identify flower colors it might help to know that the "true values" of CMY can "only be" 0, 64, 128, 192, or 256 and correspondingly the "true values" of RGB can "only be": 0, 63, 127, 191, or 255.
In crossbreeding, the bulb on the left splint gives the left side of the bulb's gene to the child, with some randomness, the right splint gives the right side of the gene, with a certain randomness.