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Margaret admiring the inflorescence. |
Singapore's first and only titan arum (a.k.a. corpse flower) is the first thing that currently greets visitors to the country's botanic garden. Native only to the forests of Sumatra, a short hop across the Malacca Strait from here, Singapore had to get the corm for growing this one from the Huntington Botanic Garden in California. (Seems Indonesia just won't cut Singapore any slack.) The inflorescence is popping out but it didn't smell like the rotting flesh of its fame. Maybe it'll turn stinky when to leaves begin the peel back. Hard to believe it can be worse than durian.
I remember walking over to the University of Washington from the Safeco Tower with Dan Pedersen to look at the botany department's corpse flower in 1999. At the time, it was only the 37th blooming of a cultivated titan arum since the first in 1889. It looks like Singapore's will be number 133 for the botanists. Obviously, they've got this down. Soon there will be entire plantations devoted to the corpse flower and they'll be available from FTD. Perfect for those times when you want to tell someone to %$#@! off -- and durian just isn't enough.
3 comments:
Ahhhhh, this does bring back fond memories. Normally I like as much vegetation as possible in my surroundings, but the necessity of whole plantations of this is a stretch. I'll grant you, it does make a statement.
It looks like a giant plastic ear of corn like you'd see on a Grange building in Iowa somewhere. Hope it's far enough away from your dwelling so that when it does begin to show its stuff for real you won't be regaled by the aroma.
So there's no opposition to stinky flowers or food, but bugs and chewing gum are dealt with in the harshest manner? Intereseting!
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