Flowers near Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered a meltdown four years ago, are producing some strangely wonderful blossoms.
Should you be more worried about environmental toxins when your garden’s daisies look like they’ve been run through a trippy Dreamscope inceptionist image filter, or if your tulip trees have stippled leaves?
Residents of Japan’s Nasushiobara City have been posting images of the deformed daisies that some believe may be linked to the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Trees and flowers can act as Mother Nature’s version of a canary in a coal mine, an alarm system giving off warnings – ia size, shape, color, splitting, or stacking – that toxins are present in our immediate environment.
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“Radiation being present in the environment is a plausible explanation,” says Forrest, “but not necessarily the only explanation for the phenomenon.”
Many of the daisy images are coming from& Fukushima Diary, a popular site on Pinterest showing images of doubled daisies, roses and sunflowers.
Members from other nations have posted similar floral mutations on Fukushima Diary, not as evidence of radiation but as a wonder they revel in.
Forrest says these alterations in plants and trees can be caused by many different stressors, including radiation, environmental toxins, global warming, introduced garden pests like mountain pine beetle, and invasive plants like kudzu.
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Concentrated pollutants will “definitely” affect household gardens, he says, and gardeners are uniquely positioned to spot subtle changes.
“Most people are not really aware of the plants that grow around them,” says Forrest. “Gardeners are acutely aware of their plants and can often see these changes before non-gardeners.”
Read more at Are Fukushima’s mutant daisies a wonder or a warning?
