Titan Arum

Last night, I experienced perhaps one of the rarest of indoor tropical plant growing experiences, the blooming of a Titun Arum. After 9 years of growth in Wisconsin, this Sumatran plant burst forth in its gigantic bloom, releasing the stench of rotting carrion. Because of this smell, the plant is also known as the “Corpse Flower”. This smell is given off to attract its native pollinators that dine on the meat of dead animals. As I walked through the greenhouse on the University of Wisconsin campus, I could certainly catch the smell in the air, but was told by one of the greenhouse workers that the evening before was when the real stench occurred.  The olfactory event was so pungent that she could smell it in her office on a different floor of the building. The bloom lasts between 24-48 hrs and occurs quite rarely (and I thought waiting on jaboticaba seedlings would be hard!). As an indoor gardener, I feel lucky to have experienced the event but feel no need to have such a smell in my nostrils again for sometime. For more information on the greenhouse, please visit the D.C. Smith Greenhouse website.