“Baby” and guests in the Bonsai House at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on August 9, 2006.
Credit: Brooklyn Botanic Garden Titan Arum Webcam. Sampled approximately 11:40am EDT, 2006.08.09

Amorphophallus titanum, the Titan Arum, aka Corpse Flower, is within a week of peak bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. You can see “Baby”, as the plant is known at BBG, and its visitors, on BBG’s Webcam. They’ve emptied the bonsai greenhouse and dedicated it entirely to this plant while it’s blooming. Moving out all the bonsai is itself a big deal; some of the plants are hundreds of years old.

It’s a big baby. As of last night at 8pm, it was 63.5″ tall and 33.5″ around. The BBG Growth Chart page says this latter figure is the “diameter”, but from the pictures, that should be “circumference.”

BBG has opened special members-only hours this evening for visiting the gardens and viewing the plant. If all goes according to plan, if you watch the webcam between the hours of about 6-7pm EDT this evening, you may catch a glance of your host himself and partner admiring “Baby”. Check back late (EDT) tonight for my personal photos and descriptions of my first and possibly only ever close encounter with this flower.

Now, about the name. I have no problem with titanum: that’s the “Titan” or “big” part. And it is a big flower. It’s the largest unbranched inflorescence of any flowering plant in the world. Amorphophallus, on the other hand, translates to “phallus without form” … rather an oxymoron, I would say. Put it all together and you get:

Giant

Shapeless

Penis.

Eeeewwwww!

Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) in bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory on November 20th, 2005. At the time this picture was taken, it measured 52.5″ in height.
Credits: US Botanic Garden via Wikipedia Commons

Click the title to visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s web page for information about Amorphophallus titanum, read the blog, and view the web cam. Here’s how they describe this probably once-in-a-lifetime event:

The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is one of the world’s most remarkable plants. Native to tropical forests in Sumatra, it produces a monstrous four- to seven-foot-tall flower head, which releases a monstrous stench of putrefaction at peak bloom (another name for the plant is the corpse flower!). The species rarely flowers in cultivation—the last time one bloomed in New York was 1939. However, Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s ten-year-old specimen has recently begun to flower. It’s expected to reach full bloom at the end of the second week of August.

Don’t miss this major botanical event! Visit our webpage for daily photo and plant-growth updates, as well as daily weblogs from members of BBG’s horticultural staff. A webcam provides an updated image of the titan arum every 30 seconds. On this webpage, you’ll also find links to articles on the natural history of the titan arum, the history of BBG’s specimen, information about growing and conserving this threatened species, and more.

Links:

• BBG Titan Arum pages
• Wikipedia article
• Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden