This one is always a crowdpleaser, since it is both semi - rare and terribly smelly to say nothing ofbeen huge. It is a family member of thecala lily family which we all know well and has naturally attracted plenty ofhobbyists.
So every few years, one of theseplants does bloom and stinks up the greenhouse in which it resides and we havethe obligatory press release. It is thepanda bear of the plant world.
I added material on it from Wikipedia.Rather inevitably it uses carrion seeking flys to pollinate.
23 April 2011 Last updated at 10:26 ET
The 17-year-old Amorphophallus titanum has never bloomed before
Thousands of people are flocking to the northern Swiss city of Basel
The Amorphophallus titanum - known as corpse flower becauseit exudes a smell of rotting flesh - is the first to blossom in Switzerland
The Basel Botanical Gardens expects the 6.6ft (2m) plant to attract10,000 people whilst in bloom.
The bloom is set to wilt late Saturday or Sunday.
Worldwide, there have been only 134 recorded blooms from artificialcultivation, according to AP news agency.
The flower first began to poke out of the soil in March, and in thepast few days it had been growing at about 6cm a day, accordingto Swissinfo news website.
Its mother plant last bloomed in the Frankfurt Palm Garden
Originally native to the tropical rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra
The flower's smell, said to be a cross between burnt sugar and rottingflesh, is designed to attract insects for pollination.
Amorphophallus titanium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos,"without form, misshapen" + phallos, "phallus", and titan,"giant") is a flowering plant withthe largest unbranched inflorescence inthe world. (The largest single flower is borne by the Rafflesia arnoldii;the largest branched inflorescence in the plant kingdom belongs tothe Talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera).
Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposingmammal,[1] thetitan arum is also known as a carrion flower, the"Corpse flower", or "Corpse plant" (Indonesian: bungabangkai – bunga means flower, while bangkai meanscorpse or cadaver; for the same reason, the same title is also attributedto Rafflesia which,like the titan arum, also grows in the rainforests of Sumatra).
Distribution
Amorphophallus titanum is endemic towestern Sumatra, whereit grows in openings in rainforests on limestone hills.[2] Theplant is cultivated by botanicgardens and private collectors around the world.
Description
Titan Arum at Royal BotanicGardens, Kew, London on8 June 2005, ten days before it opened. The plant is at the stage where thegrooved spathe isbeing revealed, with just peeping above it the darker green spadix. The spathe will foldopen to produce a red bell-shaped structure at the base of the spadix. Theplant is about 1 metre (3 ft) high in this picture.
The titan arum's inflorescence canreach over 3 metres (10 ft) in height. Like the related cuckoopint and calla lily, it consists of a fragrant spadix of flowers wrappedby a spathe,which looks like the flower's single petal. In the case of the Titan Arum, thespathe is green on the outside and dark burgundy red on the inside, and deeplyfurrowed.
The spadix is hollow andresembles a large loaf ofFrench bread. The upper, visible portion of the spadixis covered in pollen, while its lower extremity is spangled with brightred-orange carpels.The "fragrance" of the inflorescence resembles rotting meat, attracting carrion-eating beetles and FleshFlies (family Sarcophagidae) that pollinate it.The flower's deep red color and texture contribute to the illusion that thespathe is a piece of meat. During bloom, the tip of the spadix is approximatelyhuman body temperature, which helps the perfume volatilize; this heat is alsobelieved to assist in the illusion that attracts carcass-eating insects.
Both male and female flowers grow in the same inflorescence. The femaleflowers open first, then a day or two following, the male flowers open. Thisprevents the flower from self-pollinating.
After the flower dies back, a single leaf, which reaches the size of asmall tree, grows from the underground corm. The leaf grows on asemi-green stalk that branches into three sections at the top, each containingmany leaflets. The leaf structure can reach up to 6 metres (20 ft)tall and 5 metres (16 ft) across. Each year, the old leaf dies and anew one grows in its place. When the corm has stored enough energy, it becomesdormant for about 4 months. Then, the process repeats.
The corm is the largest known, weighing around 50 kilograms(110 lb).[3] Whena specimen at the Princess of Wales Conservatory, Kew Gardens,was repotted after its dormant period, the weight was recorded as91 kilograms (200 lb).
Cultivation
The titan arum grows in the wild only in the equatorial rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was firstscientifically described in 1878 by Italian botanistOdoardo Beccari. Theplant flowers only infrequently in the wild and even more rarely whencultivated. It first flowered in cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, in 1889, with over 100cultivated blossoms since then. The first documented flowerings in the United States were at New YorkBotanical Garden in 1937 and 1939. This flowering also inspired thedesignation of the titan arum as the official flower of the Bronx in 1939,only to be replaced in 2000 by the day lily. Thenumber of cultivated plants has increased in recent years, and it is notuncommon for there to be five or more flowering events in gardens around theworld in a single year. The titan arum is more commonly available to theadvanced gardener due to pollination techniques.
The popular name 'Titan arum' was invented by the broadcaster andnaturalist Sir DavidAttenborough, for his BBC series 'The Private Life of Plants,' in which theflowering and pollination of the plant were filmed for the first time.Attenborough felt that constantly referring to the plantas Amorphophalluson a popular TV documentary would be inappropriate.
In 2003, the tallest bloom in cultivation, some 2.74 m (8 ft. 11in.) high, was achieved at the Botanical Garden of the University of Bonn in Germany. The event wasacknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records.[6] On20 October 2005, this record was broken at the botanical and zoological gardenWilhelma in Stuttgart, Germany . The bloom reached a height of2.94 m (9 ft. 6 in.).
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