Try the following:
color.gradient <- function(x, colors=c("red","yellow","green"), colsteps=100) {
return( colorRampPalette(colors) (colsteps) [ findInterval(x, seq(min(x),max(x), length.out=colsteps)) ] )
}
x <- c((1:100)^2, (100:1)^2)
plot(x,col=color.gradient(x), pch=19,cex=2)