*4.1. Plant Materials*

White and red petal tissues were collected from fresh flower blossoms of the flower color chimera *P. mume* "Danban Tiaozhi" on a fine day between 9:00–11:00. The collected tissues were carefully sorted under subzero temperatures with fine-tipped tweezers into six groups according to their color and origin (Figure 1a). Tissues in the first two groups came from individual flowers having both white (WT1) and red (RT1) petal tissues. The second two groups individually consisted of white (WT2) and red (RT2) petal tissues from single-color (white or red) flowers that were located together in the same branches. The final two groups comprised petal tissues derived from separate branches bearing either white (WT3) or red (RT3) flowers only. To facilitate the use of these materials for biochemical detection and a variation analysis of single base resolution genomes, all of the tissues were harvested from a single ornamental tree, snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at −80 ◦C.
