#Radioactive Japan: Professor Mori Suspects Deformity of Cedar in Ibaraki Prefecture May Be Due to Radiation Exposure

Dr. Satoshi Mori, professor emeritus at Tokyo University (Faculty of Agriculture), has the photographs of male and female flowers of a cedar tree that he collected this year in Hitachinaka City in Ibaraki Prefecture. The city is located at about 120 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Cedar is simultaneously monoecious - i.e. bearing separate flowers of both sexes at the same time. Professor Mori explains that some branches bear only male flowers while others bear only female flowers.

But what he found in the cedar tree in Hitachinaka City was asymmetrical, malformed branches with both male and female flowers.

From Professor Mori's blog (6/15/2012):

First, these are what the normal cedar flowers should look like. Note the beautiful symmetry in both:

Male flowers:



Female flowers:



Now, cedar branches he found in Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture:

Male flowers growing on top and at the bottom of a female flower:



Female flowers were the odd ones out, Professor Mori says, because this branch was supposed to bear male flowers:



Symmetry is totally lost in this different male branch:



Callus in the center, with necrosis of male flowers (upper part):

Professor Mori suspects that the growing point of the cedar tree was irradiated, and that resulted in the developmental anomalies you see in these photos. He says more samples are needed to definitely conclude the anomalies are the result of irradiation.

Professor Mori has been studying the effect of radiation from the Fukushima accident on wild life by actually going to the affected, high-radiation areas including Iitate-mura in Fukushima and collecting samples - spiders, earthworms, dragon flies, cedars, etc. For more of his observations that I have covered, see these posts.

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