Over the past few months both the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens and Adelaide Botanic Gardens have been the focus of one very special plant. Special for a number of reasons, its short flowering time, its unusual odour and its rare showing. If anyone ever doubted the power of plants to attract people, think again as 5000 visitors to the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens and 10,000 to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens witnessed the short but very special sight of a Corpse Flower in full bloom The Titan Arum, or Corpse Flower is a botanic rarity. This lily produces a flower spasmodically through its life. The bloom only lasts for 24 hours and has the unfortunate odour of rotting flesh. First discovered in Sumatra, Indonesia in 1878 by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari, it has excited world-wide attention due to its massive size, fascinating appearance, difficulty in propagating and habit of producing a foul odor resembling rotten flesh The plant typically requires at least 7 years before it blooms but it may take even longer. In the normal life cycle, the plant produces one single enormous branched leaf at a time that looks like a small tree reaching 10-15 feet. The leaf will go completely dormant after about 16 months while its underground tuber ‘rests’ for a while. When it next sprouts, it will produce either another single leaf or an enormous bloom. The flower bud may take months to form but only remains open for a day or two before collapsing to restart the cycle. The characteristic ‘corpse’ odor is only produced for about a day before the collapse. The “Corpse Flower” is not actually a single flower but an inflorescence (a stalk of many flowers). The flowers are a mixture of tiny male and female flowers held out of sight at the base of the central plants. The female flowers mature before the male (pollen producing) flowers which avoids self-pollination. The foul smelling odor attract insects which, in the wild, crawl from Corpse Flower to another, increasing the chance of pollination. If pollinated, the stalk grows into a large club-like head of orange-red seeds. The Corpse Flower’s scent, which is strongest as the blooms first opens, is described as the smell of rotting flesh which, does sound pretty awful, however the odour has been analysed – the smell of the Corpse Flower is ….a mix of blue cheese, rotting fish, sweaty socks, manure and a sweet floral scent. Another Corpse Flower is expected in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens early in 2017. WATCH THE CLIP
