The rare tropical plant titan arum -- also known as the "corpse flower" due to its odor -- is producing its first flower following six and a half years of vegetative growth at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. It is expected to be in full bloom around June 21, 2008. The titan arum, which produces the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, is on the World Conservation Union’s Red List of Threatened Species. The public is invited to view and photograph the flowering plant. Click here for location and updates, including photos: http://www.eiu.edu/~biology/news/titan_arum.htm. More photos are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67917252@N00/.
Ron, if you were close to it you would want to run! I sure wanted to run! I've been in the presence of a blooming one at Farichild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami. It is magnificent but smells like, well, a dead corpse! The plant can hit 25 feet in total height but the inflorescence is substantially shorter but still enormous! I just got two small ones and don't know what I'll do when they bloom! The species by the way is Amorphoallus titanum and the plant is an aroid. This thread would be great if added t or moved to the aroid forums.
I wonder how many Amorphophallus titanum you'd need to grow, to have a good chance of successful pollination? I presume it would need two plants with inflorescences one day apart in development. If they were two days apart, or simultaneous, it wouldn't work. That must mean fairly sizable populations are needed to maintain the species, and suggests it is very vulnerable to extinction.
Actually Michael, there is one guy who is selling small plants relatively inexpensively right now. The problem is you have to buy 10 at a time to get them. A friend of mine bought 10 and several of us are sharing the cost. This one is tricky to pollinate due to the structure of the inflorescence. As I recall (this needs to be checked) the female and male flowers are separated into distinct zones divided by a sterile group of male flowers. The female flowers become receptive prior to the pollen being produced. But if you collect and freeze the pollen in the correct manner it is possible to use that up to one year later to pollinate the same plant once it produces a new spadix or any other plant of the same species. I'm not sure how the guy who is selling these small plants did it but he grew something close to 1000 small plants. The ones we acquired are all close to one meter tall and are still in tiny pots. It is not advisable to repot the plant until it goes dormant. There is tons of information about the process on the Aroid l forum which can be found here: http://www.hort.net/lists/aroid-l/ Although a lot of people still believe the production of an inflorescence is a rare event, knowledgeable collectors are doing it routinely now. I've read at least 10 accounts of private collectors doing it just this season. Most of those accounts can be found on the Aroid l record database. And more than one, especially the guys in Europe, are producing seed. As a result a plant that would have cost up to $500 for a small one 3 years ago can now be found for around $30. You can buy one on eBay! Here's the problem, they become enormous! If you don't have the room and conditions it is a bear to grow and store. It will go dormant and at that time can be removed from the pot for storage wrapped in damp burlap. But when the plant is viable it is near certain death to mess with it! The ones in Miami have corms that are so heavy a single adult male cannot carry one! My atrium is not quite tall enough for an adult be we are planning on building a larger one and it will be designed to accommodate this plant. If you use the Aroid l database you will need to tick off all the years and then type in your subject matter. Every post for the past 10 years or so will pop up and there are a bunch of them. Amorphophallus species are now extremely popular with collectors and my guess would be 500 or more collectors now grow this species, especially in Europe.
Hi Steve, Certainly artificial pollination makes things a lot easier, pollen can be stored, and shipped to other plants far away. I was though thinking more in terms of natural pollination, and its consequences for conservation of the species in the wild. Habitat fragmentation will mean that populations large enough to enable the event of two plants flowering with the right time interval could soon (if not already) cease to exist in the wild. Forest destruction in Sumatra has been rampant and massive in recent years. Once you are down to a handful of ten hectare reserves each with just one or two plants, and 50km between each reserve, then there will be no more natural pollination, and the species will soon become extinct in the wild.
I've heard that many times from botanist Pete Boyce, Dr. Tom Croat and others. And that is part of the reason I maintain a website on rain forest species. If we don't educate people as to why rain forest destruction is bad for all of us if we loose them! And once they are gone, likely, so are we! Just this morning I received new photos of Philodendron spiritus-sancti. That species is so rare there are only 6 known specimens left in Brazil. The natural beetle polliantor has been killed and the plants no longer reproduce! All for the sake of some coffee and sugar cane fields so we can grow coffee and make gasoline from sugar! The only specimens left are on a private farm dedicated to their preservation. What a terrible waste of a natural resource that can never be replaced! The photo attached is the property of the International Aroid Society and is used with permission
