Fig. 1

Summary of experiment design, sampling and workflow of the study. (a) Three consecutive developmental stages were targeted for the seven studied hyacinth cultivars. The flower buds of all cultivars were initially green at the first stage (B). Changes and differentiation of colour on flower buds were observed at the second stage (C). Flowers were in full anthesis at the third stage (A). The side view and top view of the flower at the third stage were documented for each cultivar, showing the colour differences of each partition. The white scale bar in each photo represents the length of 1 cm. (b) For each biological sample at each developmental stage, the perianth was further divided into three partitions, namely the outer perianth lobes (o), the inner perianth lobes (n) and the perianth tube (t). Perianth partitions are numbered as in the key. 1,2,3 - outer perianth lobes; 4,5,6 - inner perianth lobes; 7,8 - perianth tube; 2,5,8 - abaxial side; 1,3,4,6,7 - adaxial side. The white scale bar in each photo represents the length of 1 cm. A total of 189 RNA samples were collected, extracted and sequenced. The RNA-Seq libraries were sequenced on NovaSeq X Plus Platform, with a paired-end read size of 150 nucleotides. Before de novo assembly using Trinity, quality control was carried on the raw reads, during which the adaptors and low-quality reads were removed to generate clean reads. After assembly, gene expression levels were first quantified and then normalised into FKPM. Analyses including differential expression analysis, functional annotations and functional enrichment analysis were conducted.