Titan Arum or Corpse Flower
Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Yesterday I desperately wanted to get out of the studio and go on a photo shoot somewhere; I toyed with the idea of the Honolulu Zoo, but settled instead on visiting the nearby Foster Botanical Gardens in Honolulu, which is always a pleasant experience each time I go there. The lady at the admissions booth happily informed me that the Titan Arum had finally bloomed. I didn't have a clue what she meant, but smiled and went on my way to the conservatory where there is always a wide variety of orchids and tropical plants. Immediately my attention (and everyone else's there) was fixed on the unusual and very large Titan Arum, which I later found out is the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. I was viewing a "once in a lifetime experience." There are only about 150 recorded bloomings since records began. Below is another photo for scale of this oddity.
There was a hole cut in the lower side so you could view it further, and this woman was taking a close up shot of the flower's insides. Wish I had done that. I may go back again today; I will call Foster Botanical Gardens for more information after they open their doors in about 3 hours from now. I want to make sure the flower is still there. This flower only blooms once every 3 years or so, and once it blooms it only lasts for about 48 hours. The plant itself can live to be 40 years old with maybe only 4-6 blooms during that time.
Below are 2 videos (not mine) that give more information. One is a time lapse of the bloom opening at Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo in 2007.
Commentary by David Attenborough
Time Lapse of Titan Arum Bloom
I may do an update soon on this blog about this plant if I visit the gardens in Honolulu again today. By the way, this plant is also called "Corpse Flower" because of its smell to attract bugs for pollination; it is said to smell like rotting flesh.
