A photo is being shared on social media claiming it is a picture of the Pagoda or Maha Molu flower that blooms once every 400 years in the Himalayas of Tibet. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of Pagoda or Maha Molu flower that blooms once every 400 years in the Himalayan mountains of Tibet.
Fact: The image shared in the post does not show Clerodendrum paniculatum, the Pagoda flower, which blooms predominantly in India and other Southeast Asian countries every year in the period from mid-summer to autumn. There is no plant with the name Maha Molu. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, the same photo was found published by a social media user on 02 April 2023. This user published the image as part of an album named “Beautiful Fairy Tales”. The album was full of digitally created images of landscapes, flowers, animals, buildings and others. But in the description of the photo, it is nowhere mentioned that the image is created using AI or any other digital technology.
Many such digitally created pictures of trees were shared on Pinterest in an album named ‘Beautiful Trees’. A few pictures of AI-generated trees can be seen here.
Clerodendrum paniculatum is the scientific name of the Pagoda flower which predominantly grows in the regions of India and Southeast China. Pagoda flowers usually bloom every year during the period from mid-summer to autumn.
Though we could not confirm whether the image shared in the post was AI generated or from any other digitally technology, on comparing the images of Pagoda flowers and that of the tree shared in the post, it can be concluded that the image shared in the post does not show the pictures of Pagoda flowers. During the search process, no information was found about the existence of ‘Maha Molu’ flowers in the Himalayas.
Earlier, when images of different flowers were shared as the picture of rare Pagoda flowers spotted in the Himalayas, Factly published fact-checks debunking those claims. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an unrelated image is shared as the picture of Pagoda flowers found in the Himalayas.
