Winter flowers in Taichung and Taitung County were reported by farmers and nature experts Saturday to have begun blooming, an unseasonal phenomenon due to the early arrival of cold fronts and accompanying precipitation.
Speaking with CNA, Fushoushan Farm’s deputy director Wang Jen-chu (???) revealed that as a result of the ranch, which is in Taichung’s Heping District, being located between 2,200 to 2,600 meters above sea level, as well as the early arrival of low temperatures, around 500 of the farm’s plum trees had already blossomed.
The number of trees amounts to around 20 percent of the farm’s entire plum tree plantation, and their blooming plum blossoms have painted parts of the farm in red, pink, white, yellow, and green, he said.
The deputy director of Wuling Farm, Hu Fa-tao (???), also said that 50 percent of his farm’s wintersweet plantations have blossomed, with the blooming of plum blossoms following soon after.
Hu told CNA that when guests visit the farm, which is also in Taichung’s Heping District, they would be able to bask in an abundance of scents emitted by the flowers while walking among them.
Taitung nature expert Aliman Madiklan and local ecological farmer He Jie-chen (???) also reported the blooming of winter flora within the county.
Aliman, who curates the Forest Culture Museum, told CNA that plum blossoms had bloomed around his community, the Sazasa Indigenous community in the county’s Yanping Township.
Around 50 percent of the plum trees around his farm have blossomed and the best time to view the plantation at full bloom would be between the beginning and middle of January, said He.
The farmer also said that he hoped to see a good harvest for plums this year, as farmers had endured three years of crop losses.
In recent years, climate change has affected the blossoming of floras that thrive in the winter.
In 2019, only 10 percent of winter flowers around the country had bloomed, setting a record low.
Conversely, a lot of winter flower bloomed prematurely in mid-December last year, though certain locations remained barren due to a shortage of bees, resulting in yet another poor harvest.
Cold fronts arrived as early as Nov. 8 this year, which were accompanied by a robust amount of precipitation, leading to an early yet rich onset of blossoms.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel