Imagine setting out for a springtime stroll. Not here on Earth but on some distant planet — call it Novathis-458b — orbiting a distant star. Even light-years from home, you recognize some familiar pleasures: The sun (albeit a different sun) is shining. The roses are in bloom. A breeze is blowing.
But these are no ordinary roses, and it is no everyday breeze. The wind clocks in at more than 15,000 miles per hour, and the flowers, Rosa aetherialis, have evolved to harness it. Their strong pink petals curl around a spiral interior that holds the plant’s reproductive organs. The spiral shape directs the supersonic wind through the center of the flower to flush out its pollen and carry it across the planet.
If roses had evolved in a place like Novathis-458b — an imaginary place, but one that bears certain similarities to real exoplanets — this is what they might look like, Vincent Fournier, a French artist and photographer, posits in his otherworldly project, Flora Incognita, which will be on display this week at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers show in New York.
Credit…Polaris-9b is part of a compact planetary system where gravitational interactions with a nearby star and a massive moon cause significant tidal effects. This atmospheric variability leads to changes in surface gravity on the planet, as well as intermittent and sometimes violent winds. In response to the variations in gravity and wind, Nerina vortix has a helical and flexible shape, allowing it to bend and straighten.
Artist’s text, Flora Incognita
In this series of images, which are digital manipulations of real photographs, Mr. Fournier depicts how our flowers and plants might look had they evolved in the kinds of extreme conditions that exist in alien worlds.
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