What a light-emitting orange-petalled
flower might look like in the dark (public domain)
A still-unexplained yet little-known
wildlife-related phenomenon is the extraordinary occurrence, discussed by
several naturalists during the 19th Century, of sparks and flame-like flashes
of light unexpectedly emitted by certain plants. Those most commonly associated
with this bizarre enigma are species such as marigolds and geraniums, which
possess red, orange, or yellow flowers.
A beautiful yellow version of
the common marigold Calendula officinalis (public domain)
In 1843, the following account of an
observation with common marigolds, penned by Richard Dowden, appeared in Part 2
of that year's Report of the British Association:
This circumstance was
noticed on the 4th of August, 1842, at eight p.m., after a week of very dry
warm weather; four persons observed the phaenomenon [sic]; by shading off the
declining daylight, a gold-coloured lambent light appeared to play from petal
to petal of the flower, so as to make a more or less interrupted corona round
its disk. It seemed as if this emanation grew less vivid as the light declined;
it was not examined in darkness, which omission will be supplied on a future
occasion. It may be here added, in the view to facilitate any other observer
who may give attention to this phaenomenon, that the double marigold is the
best flower to experiment on, as the single flower "goeth to sleep with
the sun," and has not the disk exposed for investigation.
Can marigolds really emanate
light? (public domain)
In 1882, Scientific American
published a short note on this same subject by Louis Crie:
In living vegetables
emissions of light have been observed in a dozen phaenogamous plants and in
some fifteen cryptogamous ones. The phosphorescence of the flowers of Pyrethrum
[Chrysanthemum] inodorum, Polyanthes [sic -
Polianthes] (tuberose), and the Pandani has been known for a long
time. Haggren and Crome were the first to discover such luminous emanations
from the Indian cross and marigold, and a few years ago I myself was permitted
to observe, during a summer storm, a phosphorescent light emitted from the
flowers of a nasturtium (Tropoeolum [sic - Tropaeolum] majus)
cultivated in a garden at Sarthe.
Several reports concerning light-emitting
flowers appeared during the 1880s in the English periodical Knowledge.
These revealed that one early eyewitness had been none other than the daughter
of Carolus Linnaeus, the father of modern botanical and zoological
classification, who witnessed this phenomenon while gazing at some garden
flowers one summer twilight in 1762.
To misquote Gary Numan, are
flowers electric?? (© Robby Ryke/Creative Commons Licence)
A later eyewitness, a Mr S. Ingham,
reported his sighting in Knowledge in 1883:
A short time ago, I was
picking out some annuals on a flower-bed, on which some geraniums were already
planted, when I was surprised to see flashes of light coming from a truss of
geranium flowers. At first I thought it was imagination, but my wife and a
friend who were present also saw them. Time was about 9 p.m., and the atmosphere clear. There were other geraniums of a
different colour on the same bed, but there was no effect on them. The
particular geranium was a Tom Thumb. Is this at
all common? I have never seen or read of it before.
A field of light-emitting
sunflowers would be a spectacular if inexplicable sight, and yet such flowers
have indeed been claimed to possess this incredible ability (public domain)
In fact, eleven years earlier a tome
published by Simpkin, Marshall, & Co, entitled Lessons in Physical
Science, had included the following comments regarding this curious matter:
To the same source -
electricity - we probably owe the light which, at certain seasons, and at
certain times of the day, issues from a number of yellow or orange-coloured
flowers, such as the marigold, the sunflower, and the orange-lily...similar
phenomena have been witnessed by several naturalists. Flashes, more or less
brilliant, have been seen to dart in rapid succession from the same flower. At
other times the tiny flame-jets have followed one another at intervals of
several minutes.
The sunflower Helianthus annuus is so bright that it almost appears to radiate light even under normal circumstances (public
domain)
Flowers releasing visible discharges of
electricity is undeniably a somewhat dramatic concept. A less radical
alternative, perhaps, is that this curious optical effect may be caused by the
reflection of sunlight by petals of certain colours acting as miniature mirrors
(thus explaining why the effect lessens as daylight declines).
Whatever the answer, however, it is
certainly true today that light-emitting flowers have become one of the
forgotten phenomena of botany, ignored - if indeed even known about - by
contemporary researchers. Yet they were once known, and witnessed, by
naturalists.
Cultivated version of the
orange lily Lilium bulbiferum, another species alleged to emit flashes
of light (public domain)
Surely, therefore, it is time for a new
generation to rediscover these excluded enigmas, and extract their long-hidden
secrets. After all, as succinctly pointed out by the late, much-missed fortean
writer Mark Chorvinsky regarding this mystifying subject: "There are a lot of
marigolds and geraniums out there".
So if anyone reading this ShukerNature blog article has ever witnessed
light-emitting flowers, I'd be very interested to receive details if you'd like
to post them here.
An eyecatching array of cultivated
bright-orange marigolds (© H. Zell/Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence)
This ShukerNature blog article was
excerpted from my book Mysteries of Planet Earth.
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