I was amazed to learn that research on the petals of rose 'El Toro' (also known as Gladiator, Red Mountain Peak, Uncle Joe and just plain old Toro), is helping to improve the efficiency of thin-film solar cells.
An article entitled “Flower Power: Exploiting Plants’ Epidermal Structures for Enhanced Light Harvesting in Thin-Film Solar Cells” published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials describes the research.
You can read a reader-friendly summary here:
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/...
