A plastid (a type of cellular organelle) in plants that produces, stores, or contains red pigments, similar to how chloroplasts produce green pigment.
From Greek erythro- (red) + plastid (from plassein, to form). Botanical term for the specialized organelle type that synthesizes and stores red-colored compounds in plant cells.
Red, orange, and yellow leaves in fall are beautiful partly because erythroplastids (and chromoplastids more broadly) finally take over when green chloroplasts shut down—the red pigments were there all along, just masked by green.
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