If anyone lives in the Chicago area, there will be a Titan Arum blooming at the Chicago Botanic Garden within the next week.
What is a Titan Arum?
The scientific name is Amorphophallus titanum. The name Amorphophallus is derived from two words: Amorpho ("deformed or shapeless")* and phallus (well...looks like something phallic, if you get my drift. OK, it translates literally to "deformed penis"). And this is the species that is the largest in the genus, thus the "titanum" part of the name. They are native to Sumatra and these inflorescences (group of many flowers) can grow to about 9 feet tall in the wild (see the photo of it in the wild with the 3 guys). The one at the Chicago Botanic Garden is around 5'5" as of today and might grow a few more inches before it blooms. You can see that on the live webcam.
The plants are aroids, and in the same family as Jack-in-the-pulpit, skunk cabbage, and Calla lilies. So they have an inflorescence with hundreds of flowers, both male and female. All of the flowers are held on a structure called the spadix (the center, phallic thing on the plant). And then they have a spathe that wraps around the spadix. With the Titan Arum, the spathe turns a nice mauve color when it is about to flower (again, see the photo).
Why should you care?
You don't really have to care, but these plants have not bloomed much in the United States. Denver Botanic Garden just had one bloom and it was the first time there was one of these plants to bloom in the entire Rockies. I'd say that maybe 20 of these plants have bloomed in North America in the past 15 years. So they are pretty rare to see. Most of the plants that have bloomed in the US came from one seed collection just 20 years ago, so they haven’t had much time to have them in cultivation. And from seed, the plants take roughly 7 years or more before they will actually produce a flower.
But the interesting thing is that they smell pretty awful. They attract flies and beetles for pollination. Those insects like the smell of rotting meat and the Titan Arum doesn't smell so good. The plant produces the smell by heating up, which volatilizes the chemicals that produce the scent. It is pretty remarkable. In fact, the plant can heat up to ~30ºF more than the surrounding air.
So keep an eye on the Chicago Botanic Garden site if you want to come up and look at the plant in bloom. I’ll try to post updates as it gets closer. They are predicting bloom in the next 3-5 days.
*Edited 8/25 To clarify the literal translation of the genus Amorphophallus, which means "deformed penis."
