""Four years after the powerful earthquake and tsunami that disabled Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, photographs of “mutant daisies,” taken near the site, are stirring concerns over the long-term effect of radiation.
The images, posted in May by Twitter user @san_kaido of Nasushiobara City, located about 65 miles from the disaster site, show common daisies that appear to have been affected by radiation exposure, oddly fused together like Siamese twins, reports the Weather Channel.
“The right one grew up, split into 2 stems to have 2 flowers connected each other, having 4 stems of flower tied beltlike,” according to Fukushima Diary. “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.”
That radiation dosage is classified as safe for “medium to long-term” habitation, according to Japanese officials, who have permitted 7,000 evacuated residents to return to their homes near the reactors.
Three of Fukushima Dai-Ichi’s six reactors experienced meltdowns following damage from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Radioactive water continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean, with trace amounts found in tuna on the U.S. Pacific coast.
The deformed flowers appear to have a natural, but rare, condition in vascular plants called “fasciation” or “cresting” that has been observed in other parts of the world that have not been exposed to large dosages of radiation.
Most land plants’ tips grow outward from the center as one point produces cylindrical tissue. But where fasciation occurs, the tip grows outwards and becomes elongated from the point of growth, producing a flat, longer looking flower head.
Cresting or fasciation can be caused by hormonal or genetic defects, bacterial or fungal infection or environmental causes that stress the plant. In this case, radiation may be the culprit.""
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