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Summary Structural color is poorly known in plants relative to animals. In fruits, only a handful of cases have been described, including inViburnum tinuswhere the blue color results from a disordered multilayered reflector made of lipid droplets. Here, we examine the broader evolutionary context of fruit structural color across the genusViburnum.We obtained fresh and herbarium fruit material from 30Viburnumspecies spanning the phylogeny and used transmission electron microscopy, optical simulations, and ancestral state reconstruction to identify the presence/absence of photonic structures in each species, understand the mechanism producing structural color in newly identified species, relate the development of cell wall structure to reflectance inViburnum dentatum, and describe the evolution of cell wall architecture acrossViburnum.We identify at least two (possibly three) origins of blue fruit color inViburnumin species which produce large photonic structures made of lipid droplets embedded in the cell wall and which reflect blue light.Examining the full spectrum of mechanisms producing color in pl, including structural color as well as pigments, will yield further insights into the diversity, ecology, and evolution of fruit color.