Corpse Flower

Image courtesy of Mo Fayyaz,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

For questions or more information please email Kathy Upton.
A Titan Arum (Corpse Flower) is developing a bud in the UMSL greenhouse. The flowering structure should open around the end of May or early June, and gives off the odor of rotting meat to attract pollinators. It will only be open for around 12-20 hours. This plant is from seed grown in 1995 and has a tuber weight of 34 pounds when dormant. The seed was collected by Dr. James Symon in Sumatra. View the progress via our live webcam

http://www.umsl.edu/~biology/titan_arum/

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Education

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• Flowers
• Biology

[ramv36]

This plant HAS bloomed again just this weekend, 05/14/2011.

It's sister, Betty, it set to also bloom possibly this week, which I don't think has happened before!

Archie wasn't set to bloom again for another 8 years!

[smurfboywv]

The smell is created because in Sumatra there's no bee's or butterlies like we have here in the USA to pollinate flowers, so the flower produces a stinkto attract flies and dung beetles for pollination.