In the botanical garden of the Australian Adelaide, a pandemonium of visitors. According to the Daily Mail, the reason for the tails was the bloom of the “corpse flower”, scientifically called “titanic amorphophallus”.
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In the botanical garden of the Australian Adelaide, a pandemonium of visitors. According to the Daily Mail, the reason for the tails was the bloom of the “corpse flower”, scientifically called “titanic amorphophallus”.
Thousands of visitors literally rush into the garden with a fight, because they have only two days to “enjoy” a unique phenomenon – the blossoming of amorphophallus, exuding the smell of rotten meat. If you do not have time to “touch the beautiful” now, you will have to wait at least three more years before the giant opens its “bud” and once again delights the guests with the aroma.
The plant itself, in fact, resembles a huge flower with a sharp pestle in the middle, and can reach a height of three meters. Underground, the giant feeds on a large tuber, sometimes weighing more than 100 kilograms. It is very difficult to grow such a miracle of nature, because about 10 years pass from the moment of planting to flowering.
The aroma of rotting meat or the cadaverous smell of the plant emanates for a reason, but to attract carrion-eating insects, for example, flies or beetles, which must pollinate the amorphophallus and help it reproduce. The plant exudes the strongest stench on the first day after the opening of the “bud”, and then gradually “decreases”.
However, in addition to the unpleasant aroma, many visitors to the botanical garden note the beautiful appearance of the flower, which is usually hidden from view. At first, some viewers don’t even believe that this “construction” is a real plant, mistaking it for a man-made model.
In nature, the amorphophallus titanic is considered an endangered species, because, according to biologists, there are no more than a thousand specimens left in their natural habitat on the island of Sumatra. In botanic gardens, the “corpse flower” is not yet very common, although lately it has become increasingly common in large greenhouses.
