A Case Of Split Personality?
This extremely rare chrysanthemum has been found by William Underwood, growing in his garden in Cavendish, Suffolk.
Noticed by the 73 year young pensioner on Monday 17th August, William said
“What makes it unusual is it is just one flower and not two different coloured flowers growing on one stem. The rest of my chrysanthemums are yellow so I think this one is trying to escape back to its original state.”
Incredibly Rare …
This type of bloom – where the colour of the flower is split straight down the middle – is extremely rare, occurring in Britain around five times a year.
Botanist James Armitage of the RHS explained
“Bi-coloured flowers are an abnormality and while we take tens of thousands of calls here every year we don’t hear of very many.
The phenomenon probably occurs at a very early stage of the flower’s development, probably when it consists of just two cells.
At this stage, one cell suffers a mutation in its flower colour genes that leads a different colour to be expressed.
As the cells divide, half are of the new colour and half are the standard colour. This results in a very odd-looking flower with a definite demarcation line down the middle.”
