Daisies joined at the hip.
My sister sent me this photo of a Gerbera daisy from her garden, in which two blooms of the daisy are attached to the same base. I’d been trying to find some information about what causes this and how common it is, but was coming up empty. (I know — shocking! — 700 million hits from the term “two flowers attached to same base” and none of them about the topic at hand.) Then, I decided to get a little less than politically correct and Google “Siamese twin flowers.”
Bingo.
There still isn’t a lot of information about why this occurs, but it seems that Gerbera daisies are among the species more likely to sport conjoined flowers. A discussion of a two-headed echinacea over at the Garden web indicates that doubles like this can be caused by aster yellows, a disease that causes flowers and leaves to appear twisted. It also can be a natural mutation. Among vegetables, two-headed fruits happen more commonly. For fun photos of unusual plants and fruits, check out the Garden Mutants web site.
Laura says
July 21, 2010 at 12:58 pmBizarre! I’ve never seen anything like it!
meemsnyc says
July 21, 2010 at 1:28 pmI’ve never seen anything like that before. Neat!
Benjamin says
July 21, 2010 at 3:53 pmNow, I saw two monarch butterflies that looked like this today. I’d just released a male after it came out of its chrysalis, and a local male nectaring outside immediately attacked it, and they sat on a 7′ eupatorium in frozen struggle. Try a pc search for that on google.
Sheila says
July 21, 2010 at 4:02 pmCool!
Elly says
July 21, 2010 at 7:23 pmThanks for figuring this out for me. I knew you would have the answer! Wierd, huh?! But kind of cool and quite a topic of conversation with my neighbors.
Mary Schier says
July 22, 2010 at 9:25 amThanks for sharing the photo, Elly! I’ve had mutant veggies before, but never seen this on a flower.
Rachel Spaeth says
March 29, 2015 at 6:49 pmGreetings! The term you are looking for is “Fasciation” and is otherwise known as “cresting.” The process of fasciation occurs when a bud or stem has had some kind of physical damage. The damage can be caused by bacteria, insects, frost, or rogue clippers. Some plants are more susceptible to it than others.
Chris says
February 13, 2017 at 6:42 pmI have one also very cool. It’s a Gerbera Daisy.
Charlotte says
April 19, 2018 at 2:25 amI looked on this page because I have just found a ‘two-headed’ common daisy!
Michael says
May 19, 2018 at 7:29 pmI think it’s neat as can be. I have a potted Gerber daisy that produces twins every year. This year it is red last year they were orange. If I could figure how to send you pic I would share them.
Sharman C Thomas says
May 30, 2018 at 6:40 pmIts happend to me for 3 years skipped a year but differnt plants 2 wete yellow this year dont know color yet but i love it
Olivia says
June 6, 2018 at 5:18 pmI was sorting out all my clearance annuals from Lowe’s today on the patio and came across on of my daisies with a 2-headed flowering stalk. Pretty cool, twins.
Samantha says
March 2, 2019 at 12:50 pmThe same thing happened to my plan and I had to research to see if this was common. Thank you so much for posting.