paperwhite color shift

[Julia F N Altshuler]

Each fall I buy a dozen paperwhite narcissus bulbs all ready to grow and
flower when I put them in dirt and water them. (Does that mean that the
nursery has forced them, or that I'm forcing them?) I don't pay much
attention to them, and they always flower like I want them too.
(Anything flowering in the winter is terrific.) They get little sun in
the house in the winter, some water, not the best soil.

Then in the spring I plant them outside with a little bulb fertilizer. I
don't pay attention to whether they bloom the next spring or the spring
after, when they do, they're no longer white; they're white in the center
and pale yellow on the petals.

I'm not complaining. Flowers are flowers. But I'm curious about the
color shift. Is it the soil conditions? The timing? Do they revert
back to their natural color? I would have thought that the color was
genetic and therefor in the bulb unchangeable.

--Lia, zone 5

--
"It is a strange fact of life on earth that a human being who reaches
college age under the impression that "it's" is the possessive form of
"it" cannot be disabused of that belief. No amount of red ink will wash
it out."
Louis Menand