Charles Davis speaks with Harvard Gazette staff about the early onset of spring.

“We’re seeing spring plants that are now flowering on average over three weeks earlier than when they were first observed — and some individual species that are flowering as much as six weeks earlier,” said Charles Davis, a Harvard professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and the study’s senior author. “That’s a dramatic advancement of spring. We have a long historic record that shows these are far and away the earliest flowering times on record for the eastern United States.

“When we looked at the data, I was stunned at just how early flowering was occurring,” Davis added. “It is striking, how early we’re seeing spring.”

Read more in the Harvard Gazette.