Corpse Flower

A few weeks ago, the corpse flower at the botanical gardens was blooming.  I was very excited and dragged Steven along to check it out with me.  Apparently, we JUST missed it! Bummer, but we got to see a few of the different stages and I took some photos.

First of all, the corpse flower, or Amorphophallus titanum (which to me sounds like it translates to "giant misshapen penis") is so called because when it blooms it reportedly smells like rotting flesh. Delicious! The smell attracts pollinators (only a few species of which we have in Hawaii), and then the corpse flower sort of crumples in on itself, only to bloom another seven years later. In the picture on the left, you can see me standing next to the flower that just bloomed. The spadix is the large fleshy spike in the middle of the flower. It has turned brown because it just bloomed, but usually it is pale green (like the one on the right). The leafy "flower" part around the spadix is called the spathe.  When the flower blooms, the spathe open up to about 3m in circumference.

The botanical garden had a few of the corpse flowers, so they opened one up to show what it looks like inside.  The little stalks are where the pollinators wriggle around to transfer pollen they pick up as the crawl into the spathe.

 Below is a picture of the bugs that typically pollinate these plants. The Carrion Beetles are really the most useful to the plants, but since we don't have those in Hawai'i, the botanical garden does the pollinating by hand. Sounds like a fun night! Albeit a bit stinky.

 There were also a selection of lovely orchids, some of which I photographed below.

And finally, a selection of some of the seeds from the garden. I love the variety!