Surprising flowers have bloomed on a cherry tree grown from a seed that orbited the Earth for eight months, prompting monks and scientists in Japan to analyze why the tree sprouted earlier than expected, Agence France-Presse reported.
On April 1, the four-year-old sapling burst into blossom, possibly a full six years ahead of Mother Nature's normal schedule.
The cherry stone that blossomed into a tree had spent time abroad the International Space Station (ISS). But Buddhist brothers at the ancient temple in central Japan are baffled by the cosmic mystery surrounding the early growth of the tree.
"We are amazed to see how fast it has grown," Masahiro Kajita, chief priest at the Ganjoji temple in Gifu, told AFP by telephone.
"A stone from the original tree had never sprouted before. We are very happy because it will succeed the old tree, which is said to be 1,250 years old."
A project, which gathered seeds from different kinds of cherry trees at 14 locations across Japan, had chosen the wonder pip to be among the 265 harvested from the celebrated "Chujo-hime-seigan-zakura" tree.
After the ISS circled the globe 4,100 times, the stones returned back to Earth on July 2009 with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, AFP reported.
"By April this year, the 'space cherry tree' had grown to around four meters (13 feet) tall, and suddenly produced nine flowers -- each with just five petals, compared with about 30 on flowers of the parent tree," AFP reported. "It normally takes about 10 years for a cherry tree of the similar variety to bear its first buds."
The seeds were sent to the ISS as part of "an educational and cultural project to let children gather the stones and learn how they grow into trees and live on after returning from space," said Miho Tomioka, a spokeswoman for the project's organizer, Japan Manned Space Systems (JAMSS).
"We had expected the (Ganjoji) tree to blossom about 10 years after planting, when the children come of age," she added.
Kaori Tomita-Yokotani, a researcher at the University of Tsukuba who took part in the project, told AFP she was stumped by the extra-terrestrial mystery.
"We still cannot rule out the possibility that it has been somewhat influenced by its exposure to the space environment," she said.
