The Corpse Flower: Description, Life Cycle, Facts, and More
Parts of the Flower
What appears to be the flower of a titan arum is actually a flowering structure, with both male and female flowers inside. Each sex matures at different times to avoid self-pollination. The parts of the flowering structure, in general, consist of the following:
Spadix: The spadix is the spiky green structure in the middle of the corpse flower that contains individual flowers.
Spathe: The spathe encases the spadix. When the corpse flower blooms, it opens and appears dark red.
Flowers: Located at the base of the spadix in two distinct layers, the flowers are pollinated by flies and insects that are attracted to the plant's odor.
Seeds: After flowering, the plant produces clusters of fruit that mature in 6-12 months, at which point they are (hopefully) eaten by birds in the wild and dispersed to become new plants.2
When planted from seed, leaf buds emerge first from the corm of the corpse flower and grow upwards reaching heights of 15 to 20 feet, and producing a leaf stalk and leaf blade. These leaves will die back annually, and the plant will be dormant between three and six months before a new leaf emerges. After a period 7 to 10 years the plant will reach maturity and, instead of a new leaf, it will produce a flower bud. Once the corpse flower reaches adulthood, it continues to produce flowers every 3 to 8 years on average in its native environment.
Why Is the Corpse Flower So Rare?
According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, there were only 41 documented bloomings of the corpse flower in cultivation prior to the year 2000.3 However, a growing awareness of the plant's disappearing native habitat, coupled with successes in pollen-sharing to increase seed production, as well as advances in raising the plant from cuttings, has led to at least a half a dozen blooms around the world each year. Nevertheless, seeing the plant's flowers remains incredibly rare, primarily because after waiting nearly a decade to emerge, the bloom withers and dies after 24 to 48 hours.
When the New York Botanical Garden had a plant bloom in 2016, more than 25,000 people visited, smelling the bloom in person, and more than 16 million watched the plant from an online video feed.4 Those who flock to the plant don't only want to see it in person, with some swapping pollen from all over the world to set seed on their own plants, hoping to create cold-tolerant varieties and expand the plant's range, allowing it to live outdoors in the United States.
Currently, corpse flowers are only grown by experts in botanical gardens and speciality nurseries outside of their native range, requiring copious amounts of fertilizer, a sunroom or conservatory with at least a 30-foot ceiling to produce flowers, and eventually weighing up to 300 pounds. In their native environment, timber harvesting and palm oil production increasingly threaten the corpse flower, as large portions of the forest they inhabit have disappeared.
In addition, some Indigenous communities in the plant's native range believe titan arum to be a predator to people (due to the markings on the leaves’ stems that resemble a snake), and destroy the plant when they find it on their farmland. That said, the species is legally protected in Indonesia and botanists are working on ways to better pollinate and grow the plant to support its conservation
What appears to be the flower of a titan arum is actually a flowering structure, with both male and female flowers inside. Each sex matures at different times to avoid self-pollination. The parts of the flowering structure, in general, consist of the following:
Spadix: The spadix is the spiky green structure in the middle of the corpse flower that contains individual flowers.
Spathe: The spathe encases the spadix. When the corpse flower blooms, it opens and appears dark red.
Flowers: Located at the base of the spadix in two distinct layers, the flowers are pollinated by flies and insects that are attracted to the plant's odor.
Seeds: After flowering, the plant produces clusters of fruit that mature in 6-12 months, at which point they are (hopefully) eaten by birds in the wild and dispersed to become new plants.2
When planted from seed, leaf buds emerge first from the corm of the corpse flower and grow upwards reaching heights of 15 to 20 feet, and producing a leaf stalk and leaf blade. These leaves will die back annually, and the plant will be dormant between three and six months before a new leaf emerges. After a period 7 to 10 years the plant will reach maturity and, instead of a new leaf, it will produce a flower bud. Once the corpse flower reaches adulthood, it continues to produce flowers every 3 to 8 years on average in its native environment.
Why Is the Corpse Flower So Rare?
According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, there were only 41 documented bloomings of the corpse flower in cultivation prior to the year 2000.3 However, a growing awareness of the plant's disappearing native habitat, coupled with successes in pollen-sharing to increase seed production, as well as advances in raising the plant from cuttings, has led to at least a half a dozen blooms around the world each year. Nevertheless, seeing the plant's flowers remains incredibly rare, primarily because after waiting nearly a decade to emerge, the bloom withers and dies after 24 to 48 hours.
When the New York Botanical Garden had a plant bloom in 2016, more than 25,000 people visited, smelling the bloom in person, and more than 16 million watched the plant from an online video feed.4 Those who flock to the plant don't only want to see it in person, with some swapping pollen from all over the world to set seed on their own plants, hoping to create cold-tolerant varieties and expand the plant's range, allowing it to live outdoors in the United States.
Currently, corpse flowers are only grown by experts in botanical gardens and speciality nurseries outside of their native range, requiring copious amounts of fertilizer, a sunroom or conservatory with at least a 30-foot ceiling to produce flowers, and eventually weighing up to 300 pounds. In their native environment, timber harvesting and palm oil production increasingly threaten the corpse flower, as large portions of the forest they inhabit have disappeared.
In addition, some Indigenous communities in the plant's native range believe titan arum to be a predator to people (due to the markings on the leaves’ stems that resemble a snake), and destroy the plant when they find it on their farmland. That said, the species is legally protected in Indonesia and botanists are working on ways to better pollinate and grow the plant to support its conservation
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29 August 2023
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