Crabapples have high ornamental value because of their bright and colorful flowers. Thus, in order to reveal the reasons for the difference in crabapples petals color, color parameters, chlorophyll, carotenoid, and total anthocyanin contents as well as the composition and content of anthocyanin-related flavonoids, and the expression levels of anthocyanin biosynthesis-related genes in petals of five crabapples were measured in this study. The relationship between flower color and possible influencing factors was also analyzed. The results of this study show that anthocyanins play a dominant role in crabapple petal coloration. A total of four flavan-3-ols, three anthocyanins, three flavonols, two dihydroflavones, and one dihydrochalcone were identified and quantified from crabapple peal. Data reveal that cyanidin-3-O-galactoside is the most abundant in crabapple petals among anthocyanins. Data show that total anthocyanin content gradually increased while expression levels of gene coded phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), chalcone isomerase (CHI), dihydroflavonol 4-reductase (DFR), anthocyanidin synthase (ANS), anthocyanidin reductase (ANR), and UDP-glucose: flavonoid 3-O-glucosyltransferase (UFGT) in the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway all trended upward. The results obtained in this study provide new reference data and insights on reasons of crabapple petal coloring differences.

海棠花鲜艳夺目，具有很高的观赏价值。因此，为了揭示海棠花瓣颜色，颜色参数，叶绿素，类胡萝卜素和总花色苷含量以及花色苷相关类黄酮的组成和含量以及花色苷生物合成相关基因的表达水平差异的原因。在这项研究中测量了五个海棠花瓣中的胡萝卜素。还分析了花色与可能影响因素之间的关系。这项研究的结果表明，花色苷在海棠花瓣的着色中起主要作用。从海棠果皮中鉴定并定量了总共四种黄烷-3-醇，三种花色苷，三种黄酮醇，两种二氢黄酮和一种二氢查耳酮。数据显示花青素3- O-半乳糖苷在花青素中海棠花瓣中含量最高。数据显示花青素总量逐渐增加，而基因编码的苯丙氨酸氨裂合酶（PAL），查尔酮异构酶（CHI），二氢黄酮醇4-还原酶（DFR），花青素合酶（ANS），花青素还原酶（ANR）和UDP-葡萄糖：类黄酮3-O-葡萄糖基转移酶（UFGT）在花色苷的生物合成途径中都呈上升趋势。这项研究中获得的结果为海棠花瓣着色差异的原因提供了新的参考数据和见解。