• Daffodil

• Hellebore

• Lungwort (Pulmonaria)

• Anemone

How do flowers come into bloom?

Several factors affect when plants come into blossom, with the weather, temperature and the amount of sunlight the plant receives being the major influences. These all influence its reproductive development, with the need to reproduce at the right time being the ultimate reason plants come into bloom when they do. This time of year, the plant senses the coming of spring by the shortening night periods and increased hours of daylight.

Specifically, it is a plants' leaves that perceive these seasonal changes in day length. This triggers a long-distance signal to travel through the plant from its leaf to its shoot tip, where flowering is induced. Research has revealed that this ‘signal’ is a protein known as Flowering Locus T Protein (FT protein), a hormone-like molecule, which is produced in leaves by the FT gene. The molecule travels all the way through the plant to the shoot, where it activates other genes. At the top of the stem, a flower bud will begin to form, which will eventually open up, or bloom, into a flower. Some of the other genes involved in the process are Apetala1 and Constans, all of which are activated when the plant senses that the timing is right to start flowering.