A rare flower is in a superbloom in the Rocky Mountains
Page 4/5

INOUYE: Well, it turns out that these plants do something called preformation. They actually start making their leaves four years before those leaves appear above ground, and that means that they're also preforming their flower stalks. So I think what's happening is if we have an unusually wet summer, that triggers some of these plants to stop making leaves underground and start making the beginning of a flower stalk. Last summer was quite a dry summer. I know that four years from last summer is not going to be a good flowering year. That also means that if a climate is changing and becoming drier, these flowering events are going to be happening less frequently. It's been seven years since the last one, and those intervals between these big super blooms could start becoming longer and longer as the climate dries out.

RASCOE: That's David Inouye, a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Thank you so much.

INOUYE: You're quite welcome.

Prev
Next
Back to headlines
News menu
Home