Why do non-green plants do just as well as green plants?

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Some plants have no green on them at all, like the Purple Heart Tradescantia ([this is what it looks like](https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/purple-heart-tradescantia-pallida/)) and plenty more.

Since plants photosynthesize with chlorophyll (this is a very basic understanding), which is the green pigment, why would any plant not want to be as green as possible? It seems counter-intuitive to have a dominant pigment that is not green. So how do they survive just as well as “greener” plants?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The leaves are green sort of, they contain Chlorophyll like other plants, but they also contain anthocyanin pigments making them darker than normal.

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