DaytonDailyNews.com

Local flowers are blooming significantly earlier in spring than they did two decades ago, suggesting global climate change may be making its way to the Miami Valley.

While flowering dates vacillate from year to year, there was a clear trend toward earlier spring blooming times for 17 of 35 plant species between 1983 and 2007, said Jim Runkle, Wright State University professor of biological sciences.

Mouse-ear chickweed's blooming time is, on average, 35 days earlier than it was a generation ago.

Trillium's flowering time has advanced from early May to early or mid-April.

"It was more than I thought," Runkle said.

Reports of climate change recently piqued William "Bill" Felker's curiosity. The 68-year-old Yellow Springs man, who publishes "Poor Will's Almanack," checked blooming times he has recorded for local plants, records he has logged yearly since the early 1980s.

He found forsythia more likely to bloom before March 25 than in the 1980s, while redbuds were more prone to flower before April 13.

Most striking, he said, were mock orange bushes, which recently have an average blooming date of May 8 — 10 days earlier than the mid-1980s average.

Still, Felker is skeptical of claims that spring comes much earlier in some parts of the world than it once did, noting the onset of the seasons vacillates yearly.

"I think the jury is out as to whether (climate change) is really going to affect us in our lifetimes," he said. "I haven't seen the kind of effect I read about in the newspapers."

Spring forward

Here are some local plants that are blooming earlier than they did 25 years ago.

Mouse-ear chickweed:

35 days earlier

Trillium: 25 days

Jack-in-the-pulpit: 20 days

Dandelions: 17.5 days

Toothwort: 12.5 days

Garlic mustard: 12.5 days

Phlox: 10 days

Source: Wright State University