SAN FRANCISCO — At sunrise and sunset, only ROY shows up for rainbow duty—G and BIV don’t appear for the earliest and latest color shows in the sky. Rainbows, it seems, are far more complex than the ...

Japanese Bedcover, ca. 1900s handspun and handwoven cotton, sumi ink and indigo and other dyes 65x65 inches, Museum of Inernational Folk Art. (Courtesy of the Albuquerque Museum) Indigo's deep ...

Blue is one of nature's rarest colors. Indigo, a dye obtained from the tiny leaves of small parasitic shrubs that are part of the Indigofererearsa tribe, creates the bluest of blues. For almost five ...

In response to my inquiry about what people’s favorite birds are, a reader named Jan sent me a card with a stylized little owl on it. She writes: “Although I rarely see them, to me the most beautiful ...