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On March 18 and 19, 2012, in
Ithaca, New York, thousands of researchers, students, and intrigued members of
the public filed through the greenhouse at Cornell University to experience one
of the most beautiful and most nauseating occurrences of the botanical world.
Over the course of about 48 hours, Cornell’s titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) gradually opened its huge, deep purple
leaf to fill the air with a strong scent often likened to rotting meat—becoming
one among an estimated 140 cultivated titan arums in history to bloom.1,2
“The plant [was] most fragrant during the evening hours, when it heats
up and releases its fragrance,” said Karl J. Niklas, PhD, professor of plant
biology at Cornell. “It remind[ed] me of the smell of rotting fish. Others
described its fragrance as 'rotting cabbage.’ I found the smell to be
repulsively unpleasant to be around for long periods of time” (e-mail, March
20, 2012). As for the estimated 4,000 to 10,000 people who came to the
greenhouse over the course of 2 days to witness the blooming, Dr. Niklas said,
“Most people tolerated the smell just to see the plant. Some people turned away
before they entered the room.”
When a titan arum blooms—which typically takes 7 to 10 years—its tall
spike-like structure (called the spadix) begins to warm, emitting a horribly
unpleasant smell (locals in Indonesia named the plant “corpse flower”).2
This lets pollinators know that the plant’s flowers are ready to be pollinated.
Though a Discovery Magazine blog post
stated that Cornell graduate students pumped some of the plant’s scent compounds
out to reduce the smell,3 Dr. Niklas said this is incorrect. “The
pumps were used to collect volatiles released by the plant for chemical
analyses,” he clarified.
In addition to the putrid smell and huge spadix and single leaf—called
the spathe—there is yet another fascinating attraction of the titan arum’s
blooming: the revealing of a group of numerous small flowers at the base of the
spadix, called an inflorescence.2 For most of a titan arum’s blooming
period, the flowers develop and remain hidden, wrapped inside the spathe. But
when the plant blooms fully and the spathe peels open, the approximately 450
female (seed producing) and up to 1,000 male (pollen producing) flowers become
visible.
Titan arum grows natively only in the Sumatran rain forests of
Indonesia, where rapid deforestation is leading to decreasing populations.4
Because of its threatened conservation status—as well as the public’s interest
in its size, beauty, and phenomenal smell—individuals and institutions
throughout history have cultivated the titan arum. But, according to London’s
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, this is not a simple undertaking: “This species has
proved very difficult to cultivate, and there are only a handful of places in
the world that do so. Even under optimum conditions the plant takes about six
years to flower from seed.”4
Titan arums have been flowering at Kew since the first-ever recorded bloom of a
cultivated titan in 1889.4 When that same plant bloomed again, 37
years later, the public’s excitement became such a frenzy that Kew reportedly
had to call the police to control the crowds. Although Kew’s titan arum blooms
have usually been few and far between, a recent increase in the number of
plants in their tropical nursery, as well as the efforts of the garden’s
horticulturists, has led to an “unprecedented” number of blooms: one in 2002,
one in 2003, three in 2005, two in 2006, two in 2007, one in 2008, and three in 2009. A few
additional recent blooms have taken place at Switzerland’s Basel University in
2011, Ohio State University in 2011, University of California – Davis in 2011, Harvard
University in 2010, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 2010, and California’s The
Huntington Library in 2010. An earlier bloom at The Huntington in 1999 attracted
a reported 76,000 people over 19 days.6 The first recorded titan
arum to bloom in the United States was at the New York Botanical Gardens, in
1937.6
Ten years passed between the planting of the seed of Cornell’s titan arum
until its recent blooming in mid-March.1 During that time, students
and researchers—including the plant’s main caretaker and manager of the L. H.
Bailey Conservatory, Carol Bader—gave the plant “constant care” through
flowering, leaf-bearing, and even dormant stages, said Dr. Niklas. To make up
for the lack of pollinators that would be present in the Sumatran rain forest,
they obtained pollen from Binghamton University, SUNY, and delicately applied it
to the stigmatic surfaces of receptive ovulate flowers (which are at the base
of the spadix). They also froze some of its pollen in order to give to others
who might wish to attempt pollination should their plant flower in the future.
“We grew the titan arum from seed to teach our students about this very
rare and endangered plant species,” said Dr. Niklas. “As students of biology,
we are all responsible for understanding as much about Earth's biodiversity as
possible. As caretakers of the planet, we humans are responsible for preserving
other forms of life. The titan arum is a remarkable organism. It deserves to be
protected.”
Cornell’s Department of Plant Biology is currently observing the
plant’s following life stages, such as the 7-hour collapse of the spadix on
March 22nd,5 and is also waiting to see if the pollination attempt
was successful. If it was, said Dr. Niklas, seeds will develop and the inflorescence
will remain viable because it has to supply the seeds with nutrients. If
pollination was unsuccessful, the inflorescence will wither and disappear.
—Lindsay Stafford
References
1. Young S. ‘Corpse flower’ blooms at Cornell after 10 years. The Ithacan. March 21, 2012. Available
at: http://theithacan.org/22202. Accessed March 26, 2012.
2. Titan arum, Amorphophallus titanum
fact sheet. Cornell University. College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Available at:
http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/cals/hort/about/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=1052628.
Accessed March 30, 2012.
3. Greenwood V. Giant corpse flower blooms in Cornell’s greenhouse. Discovery Magazine blog. March 21, 2012.
Available at:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2012/03/21/giant-corpse-flower-blooms-in-cornells-greenhouse/.
Accessed March 30, 2012.
4. Amorphophallus titanum
(titan arum). Kew Royal Botanic Gardens website. Available at:
www.kew.org/plants-fungi/Amorphophallus-titanum.htm. Accessed March 26, 2012.
5. Titan arum blog. Cornell University website. Available at:
http://blogs.cornell.edu/arum/. Accessed March 30, 2012.
6. Jones A. Massive “corpse flower” set for rare blooming in U.S. National
Geographic News. June 5, 2011. Available at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0605_flowerbloom.html.
Accessed March 30, 2012.
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