Second Flowering

On the heels of Europe’s remarkable summer of 2003, last autumn and winter were anomalously warm – as much as three standard deviations from normal, likely the warmest in 500 years, according to Luterbacher et. al in GRL. ((Exceptional European warmth of autumn 2006 and winter 2007: Historical context, the underlying dynamics, and its phenological impacts, Luterbacher et al., GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L12704, doi:10.1029/2007GL029951, 2007)) The coolest (pardon the pun) part:

Phenological impacts related to this warmth included some plant species having a partial second flowering or extended flowering till the beginning of winter. Species that typically flower in early spring were found to have a distinct earlier flowering after winter 2007.

3 Comments

  1. I haven’t read the paper, but often flowering episodes like this are brought on by stress – the plant “senses” that it should reproduce in case something happens. I’d be interested to see if folks found that plant starch reserves were depleted as a result of/in concert with the extra flowering episode.

    Best,

    D

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