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  • 2019-11-01 (xsd:date)
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  • Is This a Pagoda Flower That Only Blooms Once Every 400 Years? (en)
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  • A photograph supposedly showing a pagoda flower is frequently shared on social media along with the claim that it only blooms once every 400 years in the Himalayas: This picture does not show such a flower (nor the auspicious Mahameru flower) but rather a plant called the Rheum nobile. While this large plant is native to the Himalayas, it does not bloom once every 400 years. The above-displayed photograph was taken by Martin Walsh near Daxue Mountain in Yunnan, China. We're not exactly sure when it was taken, but it was the featured picture for a 2011 newsletter from the Alpine Garden Society. The plant in the foreground is a Rheum nobile, which can grow to more than 1 meter tall, sitting next to its cousin plant, the Rhus delavayi: The Alpine Garden Society's Instagram page contains a few additional pictures of the Rheum nobile: Interestingly, a plant called pagoda flower does exist. The flower (Clerodendrum paniculatum) is native to southeast China and produces huge spikes of coral-pink to reddish-orange, butterfly-shaped flowers that bloom from mid-summer well into fall, not every 400 years: This is hardly the first time a rumor about a flower that only blooms once every 400 years in the Himalayas has circulated on social media. In 2018, a nearly verbatim copy of this text was attached to a different picture of a flower. That rumor claimed it was the ahameru Pushpam, or arya pu, not the pagoda flower: Again, this photograph was mislabeled. It actually showed a Protea cynaroides, or the king protea, which grows in South Africa. In September 2019, a nearly identical rumor was circulated about a mahameru flower: And once again, the picture was mislabeled. This photograph actually showed a species of cactus called Carnegiea gigantea. We also investigated a similar rumor back in 2016. That one focused on a flower supposedly called the nagapushpa flower and claimed that it bloomed once every 36 years. However, that rumor used a photograph of a marine invertebrate known as a sea pen. (en)
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