World's Largest Flower

An anonymous reader writes "The Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) produces the world's largest flower and is currently in bud at the University Botanic Gardens Bonn (Germany). As of Thursday, 12 a.m. it is set to break the old world record established in 1932. The old record was 267 cm while the new bud is now 273 cm and still growing."

Comments

Name it

[lechuck80]

They named it Audry II, and that kid is standing way too close in a few of those pictures.

Slashdot fun

[aridhol]

Look - they have a graph of hits over time at the bottom. Let's see how well that thing scales ;)

Lawn

[Samus]

I don't think this is the type of flower your neighbors would like you having in the front yard. When its sprouting it has somewhat of a phallic nature to it and then it smells like rotting fish. I've heard of other flowers that have horrible odors and people sending the plants to "friends" as practical jokes. Can anyone name a few of these nasties?

They have a live webcam

[DeadSea]

Live Webcam of the flower. As I post there are a bunch of people standing around looking at the flower and the flower dwarfs all of them. Quite impressive.

The Big Stinky

[moonboy]

I saw something about this the other day. I think the workers there refer to it as the "The Big Stink" or something like that. Supposedly it periodically puts off a horrendous odor. Probably a SBD (Silent But Deadly).

Re:The Big Stinky

[scrawny]

more info about the smell and its purpose. Google on 'corpse flower' for even more.

Re:What's the flower...

[heliocentric]

Thanks for the support, it's always good to know kind people are on the 'net to help. I found the thing I was looking for referred to more directly as The Corpse Flower and that was the name I most identify with it. Never heard of something with the specific "decaying fish" armoa, just the non-descript "flesh." Also of note a Corpse Flower is in bloom in California I beleive, and that made local news.

Thanks for your help.

way cool

[RevAaron]

I was in Germany on an exchange trip 6 or so years ago, and my host family had taken me to a botanic garden where they had a speciment of this species. I was totally bummed- I had finished flowering before I saw it, and was all wilted and dead-looking.

Even dead it was surreal, the sheer size of it. The size of the pot, the size of the dead leaves... it was rad.

Ok, I admit it, I'm a plant nerd. I've always been interested in plants, be it plant population ecology or ethnobotany or the care and feeding of entheogenic plants. Now a days I'm an aspiring computational ecologist. So yeah, I'm a sucker for this stuff.

Re:Bud? Did someone say "Bud?"

[BrynM]

It's nice to know, even in our modern times, that someone is still out there trying to eat/drink/smoke anything. Humanity couldn't have gotten this far without willing testers like you dying off to prove things like we can't smoke kerosine, but we can salt meat to make it last longer.

Amorphophallus Titanum

[lindsayt]

This thing seems to have been named quite aptly.

Going back to our Latin roots:

• Amorpho = amorphous = Lacking definite form or shapeless
• phallus = phallus = male penis or female clitoris, or a representation of the penis illustrating generative power
• Titanum = titan = of prodigious size, strength or achievement

So this flower is "scientifically" defined as an unusually huge and shapeless representation of the male penis. This is why men shouldn't name flowers...

Of course to be fair, that gigantic flower is after all the plant's sex organ, so perhaps the description is apt...

Definitions courtesy of Dictionary.com

Re:Amorphophallus Titanum

[s-orbital]

So basically a flower with a scientific name of "Huge Misshapen Dick" There is a flower to give to your S/O.

Re:Amorphophallus Titanum

[FreeUser]

Going back to our Latin roots, [...] this flower is "scientifically" defined as an unusually huge and shapeless representation of the male penis. This is why men shouldn't name flowers.

Well, it does look like a big honkin' dick, so perhaps it was aptly named after all.

I find it remarkable (and very cool) that there exists a flower that has naturally evolved to be so large and, well, colorful. Methinks a little genetic intermingling with redwoods could lead to a very, very cool, mondo Dogwood-esque blooming tree.

Or perhaps we could try some even more baroque variants, creating new forests of diverse and strangely delightful plants. However, I would avoid anything carnivorous ... the last thing we need is a sequioa sized venus fly trap (though that would keep the tree huggers and loggers alike at bay, but then, too, the spotted owl would likely not fair to well in its branches either).

Now that's a corsage...

[eXtro]

If that doesn't get you into your prom dates panties nothing will.

Re:Now that's a corsage...

[presearch]

You don't think the stench of rotting fish would detract from its seductive qualities?

Do you mean the the flower or the prom date?

Re:273 cm?

[spotted_dolphin]

Ummm... The conversion is 2.54 cm = 1 inch. We're talking about at a flower which is 107.48 inches or almost 9 feet.

The smell

[netkgb]

It smells like decayed fish because, in the wild, the smell attracts every bug in a 5 mile radius to come and pollinate it.

What kind of nutrients

[Muhammar]

I cannot imagine what kind of nutrients in soil can support such a fast-growing monstrosity. Do they have to feed it live sheep?

Suddenly.... (susan)

[KurdtX]

All of a sudden Little Shop of Horrors seems a lot more scary - it seems a lot more possible now. Just need to hide a wireless speaker in there to really scare people.