Diario de rushin-bushin

I have, thanks to a fellow observer, been delving into the rabbit hole that is pelorism/peloric flowers.

After the attached observation was made, I found myself deeply fascinated by this one strange flower and at first my theory was that perhaps this odd plant, the Hedge Woundwort or Woodwort, has male and female flowers on a single plant. It would have been the first I'd heard of it but given that I'm an amateur and nature is vast it seemed possible.

That of which I was subsequently informed blew all notions of how fantastic learning is to extremes - peloric flowers.

Simply put, pelorism appears to be the abnormal radially symetrical formation of a flower which is usually not radially symetrical. Nobody really agrees on what causes it, how it affects pollinators (although there is a wonderful research article on the subject), or whether or not it can be intentionally introduced. Some seem to insist that one can breed it into foxgloves (Digitalis sp.) but others insist that this is not pelorism.

The debate is an interesting one to follow and I am dearly looking forward to studying this topic further in the future. Until then, and given my limited skill-set at present, this journal serves merely as a way to document the time I found a rare mutation and didn't even realise it until a fellow observer helped me to learn. This is why citizen science is so important and I am forever grateful to be here.

Keep asking "Why", folks.