UT suspects sabotage after A&M-created maroon flowers pop up near tower

The suspicious bluebonnets started to fade at the University of Texas at Austin. The suspicious bluebonnets started to fade at the University of Texas at Austin. Photo: Hiro Horikoshi, The University Of Texas At Austin Photo: Hiro Horikoshi, The University Of Texas At Austin Image 1 of / 137 Caption Close UT suspects sabotage after A&M-created maroon flowers pop up near tower 1 / 137 Back to Gallery

President Barack Obama's visit to the University of Texas in Austin could be overshadowed by the emergence of a scandal of potentially epic proportions.

Maroon bluebonnets are taking over flowerbeds below the school's iconic tower. Officials fear their landscape has been infiltrated by longtime rival Aggies.

"There were just a few at first but now there's much more," said Markus Hogue, program coordinator for UT Irrigation and Water Conservation.

Hogue said his team had planted regular bluebonnet seeds all over the campus. It's only in the beds below the tower that the maroon ones are showing, leading him to believe that they were planted there deliberately.

"When we started seeing the maroon, I started researching it more, (that) led me to believe that it was more likely these seeds were created at A&M and brought over here," Hogue said.

Insert dramatic music here.

Over at the Texas A&M campus, horticulturalists confirmed Thursday that maroon-bonnet seeds were indeed bred by them after researchers spotted a few occurring naturally in the Texas countryside.

"They took red ones and isolated them, and continued to select them until there was only maroon left," said Skip Richter from A&M's agrilife extension center in Harris County.

Richter is just one of thousands of A&M scientists and specialists all over the state, leading some to suggest that they had plenty of opportunity to slip onto the UT campus, perhaps under cover of darkness, to spread their maroon interlopers.

Richter said he didn't know anything about that, but he said it is likely that someone did plant them deliberately.

"Somebody scattered the seed probably," said Richter. "You wouldn't have a bunch of one color sprouting up (otherwise)," he said, undoubtedly smirking.

Bluebonnets also come in white and pink but if they are put with blue ones all would naturally return to blue over time, according to Richter. A Texas flag once created out of different colored bluebonnets has now turned back to blue.

At UT, the opposite is happening. More maroon ones are appearing. It's led to much consternation from some students.

"Some find it cute," said Hogue. "Others say if they get too much they want them removed."

Hogue's team is preparing to stop the rival breed in its tracks by cutting off seed cases with scissors before they can propogate.

At A&M, though, the controversy has led to much hilarity.

Richter said the school also bred special maroon carrots, and is quick to point out that "God chose to put a maroon gene in (the bluebonnet family), but there ain't no orange one."