Kuringi flower blossoms once in 12 years.Is it weather related ?If so is there a weather cycle of 12 years?

Question

The flower called kuringi is found in a mountain in South India.It blossoms once in twelve years only.Definitely weather has to do something with this phenomeno.Can anybody throw some light on this?

Answer 1

Never heard of this Kuringi, but there is this tree species that has mass pollen release once every 6 years...during the other years the pollen release is limited because the tree is recovering.
So what i'm saying is, it may be that the plant has put so much effort and resources into making these flowers bloom that it takes 12 years for the plant to recover and gather enough resources for the next bloom...might not be weather related at all.

Answer 2

I dont think weather has to do anything with the plant's flowering cycle.Refer to the following article to calrify yourself...


Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana) is a shrub that used to grow abundantly in the shola grasslands (the orgin of Water) of Western Ghats in India above 1800 metres. The Nilgiris, which literally means the blue mountains, got its name from the purplish blue flowers of Neelakurinji that blossoms gregariously once in 12 years.

Neelakurinji is the best known of a genus that has flowering cycles ranging from one to 16 years. It belongs to the family of Acanthaceae. The genus has around 300 species, of which at least 46 occur in India. Besides the Western Ghats, Neelakurinji is seen in the Shevroys in the Eastern Ghats. It occurs at an altitude of 1800 to 2400 metres.

Once they used to cover the entire Nilgiris like a carpet during its flowering season. However, now plantations and dwellings occupy much of their habitat.

The plant is usually 30 to 60 cms high on the hills. They can, however, grow well beyond 180 cm under congenial conditions. Plants that bloom at long intervals like kurinji are called plietesials.

In 2006, Neelakurunji have flowered again in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 12 years. Apart from Nilgris, Neelakurinji should be visible in grass lands of Eravikulam, hills between Klavarai in Tamil Nadu and Vattavada, near Munnar in Kerala during the season from August to December.

Answer 3

As there are different species of kurinjis with different flowering cycles, blooms are seen at varying intervals. P. K. Uthaman (then field publicity officer of Government of India) has reported seeing eight species of Strobilanthes bloom at Eravikulam National Park in 1988. It is also possible that the same species in different localities may complete their flowering cycles in different years. However, the flowering cycle for a particular species remains the same, but for variations of a few months triggered possibly by local weather.

Thus, after the 2006 flowering, another mass flowering can be expected to take place near Munnar in 2014-- there is a group of plants in the locality whose flowering cycle is four years ahead of the rest of the community in the region. However, one could not be sure whether these plants would survive for the next season. The next massive flowering in the Nilgiris-Palanis-Munnar belt is expected only in 2018.

Stray flowerings of kurinji do occur annually towards the end of the flowering cycle. A few plants here and there may throw up an inflorescence while the other plants remain without flowers. What triggers the massive flowering every 12 years is not known. However, below is an explanation for why they flower only once in 12 years.

Why does the Kurinji plant flower only once in 12 years?

Kurinji (Strobilanthes sp.) and a number of other plant species synchronise their flowering (reproductive phase) within large local populations at a particular site.

Populations at different sites may have different calendars, but the length of the cycle is almost the same within a particular species.

This is one of the survival mechanisms evolved to escape complete destruction of the population by seed/flower predators and is termed `predator satiation'.

Synchronisation of reproduction by large populations leads to an abundance of `prey' such that the predators are simply out-numbered.

Therefore, the percentage of population destroyed by predators is significantly reduced. Jungle fowl and small mammals are the chief seed predators of Kurinji seeds.

Other common examples of plants with synchronised flowering in long intervals include many species of bamboos, oaks and beeches.

Predator satiation has been observed in a number of animal species such as the wildebeest of the Serengeti.

How do plants `count' the number of years? They have an internal calendar, which recognises the difference in day length. There is very good evidence to show that by `recording' periodical changes in day length, these plants count the number of periods to wait before they flower.

This calendar is usually well buffered for changes in environmental conditions and damages due to human activity such as burning. In addition, individuals that are `off-sync' will not survive due to predation.

Each species waits for different periods of length before they flower so that they can accumulate enough nutrient reserves to produce a large number of seeds.