July 22, 2015
San Kaido/Wikimedia Commons
Photograph of daisies affected by rare plant ailment called fasciation.
More than four years after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima power plant, the appearance of deformed daisies about 60 miles away has sparked alarm and speculation online.
Twitter user @San_kaido initially posted photos of the daisies found in Nasushiobara city back in May, captioned by a description of the mutation, The International Business Times reports.
マーガレットの帯化(那須塩原市5/26)② 右は４つの花茎が帯状に繋がったまま成長し，途中で２つに別れて２つの花がつながって咲いた。左は４つの花茎がそのまま成長して繋がって花が咲き輪の様になった。空間線量0.5μSv地点(地上高1m) pic.twitter.com/MinxdFgXBC
— 三悔堂 (@san_kaido) May 27, 2015
"The right one grew up, split into 2 stems to have 2 flowers connected to each other, having 4 stems of flower tied belt-like. The left one has 4 stems grew up to be tied to each other and it had the ring-shaped flower. The atmospheric dose is 0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground."
While it's tempting to conclude the deformity must be due to radiation in the soil, it turns out these daisies were affected by a natural condition in vascular plants called fasciation or cresting.
Most land plants' tips grow from the centre outwards as one point produces cylindrical tissue.
However, with fasciation the tip grows outwards and becomes elongated from the point of growth, which produces the flat, longer looking flower head.
The most likely causes for fasciation are hormonal imblances, genetic mutations and bacterial, fungal and viral infections. Similar daisies have been spotted elsewhere around the world in places without nuclear contimation, The Weather Network reports, but that doesn't mean contaminated water doesn't leak into nearby communities where radiation levels have been elevated.
Japan has been dealt ongoing criticism for failing to take adequate precautions in the event of a tsunami, including a recent IAEA report that says an assessment between 2007 and 2009 had predicted a magnitude-8.3 earthquake (the March 2011 quake was magnitude-9), but a probabilistic safety assessment was lacking.
As the clean-up effort in the hot zone continues, Japan's decontamination workers have fortunately not been exposed to levels of radiation beyond government-mandated levels. The entire process could cost more than $1 billion and take several decades to complete.
