The Great Withering

The Great Withering was a still not completely understood natural phenomenon which happened at the beginning of the 20th century (likely in 1918) in the Sichine Nilne, during which some flowers did not blossom. Many Sichin lived it as a complete disaster: it made their preparation for the Flower Festival troublesome. Erve-Eute uf Yenlque reported about it in one of her works.

Phenomenon

I was staying with this tribe very tied to the flower festival, which at that point they had been preparing for for months. While I was chilling with some of them around the campfire, the bard sang a song about a horrific catastrophe that had happened four years prior during the spring, ruining that year's flower festival.
Apparently, for reasons still unknown, that year no silver rose blossomed in the forest (it is similar to the flower we call moon drop, but theirs have much larger petals). That happened to have been the main element in their composition design for the festival: chaos ensued. They travelled far and wide looking for the flower everywhere but could not find it. Moving around, they met other tribes and discovered they could not find their flower of choice either. As it turned out, many different species of plants and flowers didn't blossom and the festival was a disaster: they had to make it do with a few branches and small daisies.
I cuold still see the grief years later! They called it the Great Withering: even though Nature as a whole seemed unaffected, their sensitivity told them something was amiss in the natural realm.
When, the next spring, the silver rose and the other flowers regularly came back with their large beautiful petals, thy were relieved, as if a curse had been lifted.

— Traditions of the Eastern Sichin, Erve Eute uf Yenlque

Causes

Of some interest for our discussion may be the tale reported by Erve-Eute about the great withering of the year 1918. Though being it difficult to underastand, years later, what it was all about, we can make a polite guess. We know that, around that time, a noticeable anomalous Zeeman effect, as the Wayfarers call it, was detected in Western Doujate. We found it's causes in the unearthing of the ancient ruins of Ucte-Soifre. If we believe that the magical effect was the root of the withering, or at least that it laid the ground for it with other contributing causes, that would mean that magic can have a stronger effect on nature that we ever thought.

— Notes on the Use of Pure Magic, Tiar Glagne

Type

Natural