ARTICLES
Climate Change confuses Flowering Trees (continued)
Less than a week later, another visit showed that the wattle blossoms were still flourishing, but there was far less perfume blowing
around. There was a noticeable decrease in the brightness of blossoms on the three trees on the western side of the lake, many of
which had lost the hair-like stamens and their colour had turned more orange. On the lake’s eastern side the wattle flowers trees were
still yellow, but their blossoms had little or no scent, and they grew on small twigs like fingers unlike the others. That suggested to me
that they were a different species of wattle – something I plan to investigate in future years – provided the lake is allowed to remain
undisturbed by the proposed M6.
20th August:
The same trees, viewed from the
north once more. There are no
blossoms left on any of them,
but the ground is covered with
them.
The most beautiful of them all
is now bereft of flowers, long
before springtime.
Even some of the
banksia’s flowers have
turned black.
Where have all the flowers
gone? The ground below
around every tree is covered
with them, blowing in the wind.
It is now four weeks later. Inclement cold weather and illness prevented my return all this time, so substantial change was anticipated.
The three selected trees had no blossoms left, with a vast number of small orange flower corpses on the ground beneath. The banksia
to the south still had some flowers, but several were now black and appeared dead. On the opposite side of the lake a few bushes still
held a substantial number of yellow blossoms – without detectable scent – but most of these blossoms were an orange shade, and
without stamens. Understandable after four weeks, of course, but September is the traditional beginning of spring, and it was still 11
days away!
Of course, there are other flowers that will surely emerge!
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 3