Book excerpt: Pigment of the Imagination chronicles the story of phytochrome, the bright-blue photoreversible pigment through which plants constantly monitor the quality and presence of light. The book begins with work that led to the discovery of phytochrome and ends with the latest findings in gene regulation and expression. The phytochrome story provides a paradigm for the process of scientific discovery. This book should thus be of interest to scientists who work on phytochrome and related subjects in plant science, as well as to all scientists and science historians interested in how a scientific research field begins, develops, and matures. Documents the science and history of phytochrome research over an 80 year spanCombines information from scientific literature, archival documents, and in-person inteviewsDescribes in scholarly and readable style an elegant example of biological discoveryAccessible to researchers and students in all areas of science and history of science