Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/18/rare-terra-the-titan-corps.html
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Why Terra the Titan? If I were going to name a flower known for an overpowering putrid stench that will collapse and die in roughly 24-36 hours, might I suggest Donald the Dope.
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I saw one at Indiana University Bloomington a few years ago. I got there an hour after it bloomed and it wasn’t smelly yet. I think the stench takes a little time to form.
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It must be the season.
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Love is in the air. Putrid, rotten, disgusting love.
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What a boring video! Why don’t they introduce the pollinator insects, so there’s something to watch.
Maybe you’re just jaded lol… the thing only blooms once every seven to 10 YEARS!
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10,000 years from now a flower will evolve that smells like french fries, fried chicken, bacon, or cotton candy, and tourists will flock around it coating themselves in pollen spreading it far and wide.
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Is anyone else seeing the smoldering garbage can in the background of the livestream video?
Should I be making a call?
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I don’t speak latin, but I know what “titan” and “phallus” mean, and it ain’t “corpse”.
this is a giant penis flower.
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Terra the Titan? Maybe Changeling is staging an intervention to tell Terra what only her best friends will tell her.
Dry ice???
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a misshapen giant penis flower.
Amorphophallus titanum derives its name from Ancient Greek (άμορφος – amorphos , “without form, misshapen” + φαλλός – phallos , “phallus”, and titan , “giant”). The popular name “titan arum” was coined by W.H. Hodge
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I like the camera angle. The usual perspective is from the side. Because these flowers are so large, it’s usually hard to see what’s going on.
I wonder why Beast Boy was the only original member of the Teen Titans who didn’t show a gratuitous amount of cleavage.
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If it’s a rare flower, it’s method of reproduction can’t be very effective.
We have one of these at my local winter garden and it has flowered twice in the last 15 years or so, and yes, it takes a little while for the smell to get going.
I didn’t find it that unpleasant to be honest, and the size of the flower is amazing.
My mother saw one flowering in the wild, in Borneo when she was on a trip there, but the photos didn’t come out, because it it was the 1990’s and she had slow film in her camera, whcih was no good under the jungle canopy.
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We have at least four organizations who keep mature amorphophallus titanums here in Minnesota, so every few years someone has a showing. It’s fun to bring people to see them.
What I find most interesting is that they’re bulb-type plants, like tulips or amaryllis, only with big bulbs. Really, really big bulbs. In 40 gallon pots. Every spring they sprout, and most years it turns out to be the stalk of a leafy palm-bush-like thing that spends the year growing and storing energy. Come the fall, the growth dies off. But after about a decade of waiting, every spring becomes more exciting because you never know if this will be the year it’s actually a flower spike.
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