Abstract
Controversy over regional climatic change (RCC) and the direction of RCC continues. Models that predict how local plants would respond to defined regional climatic warming (RCW) would be useful. The urban heat island intensity (UHII) has been documented in a number of cities including Houston, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, St. Louis, Missouri, and Gainesville, Florida. We studies the phenological response of selected horticultural plants growing along urban/rural thermal gradients in several cities where the UHII had previously been defined. Deciduous plants flowered earlier in the spring and retained their leaves longer in the fall in warmer urban areas than they did in adjacent rural areas. The phenological response of local plants to known thermal gradients appears to be a useful model of the phenological effects of potential RCW.
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