Category: Tropicals

‘Wee Stinky’ draws crowds to Cornell – The towering titan arum
(Amorphophallus titanum) attracted about 10,000 visits, including more than 3,500 on March 19 alone. Read more in the Cornell Chronicle.

Time lapse:

Shows spathe opening on March 18, 2012. Audio description by graduate student Gwynne Lim is from March 19. Larger version at CornellCast. HD version coming next week.

The spadix collapsed on March 22, 2012. Don’t fret. Ph.D. candidate Gwynne Lim told me early that day that it was hollow and could go over anytime. “We went to the greenhouse early this afternoon and the appendix was ripping at the seams just above the male flowers,” says Lim. “It looks so sad.” View the 7-hour collapse in 30 seconds below or on YouTube.

More info at Titan arum blog.

I was way too busy to take many pictures of the titan arum bloom. But if you missed the event, there are plenty of places you can see why it was so exciting:

• Huffington Post slideshow – Must see!
• Titan arum at Cornell University
• Ithaca Journal slideshow – Great article too.
• More images via Google

Craig is sequestered on campus waiting for the Titan Arum to bloom.  It’s starting now and should be open tonight.  Craig is making updates on the Cornell Titan Arum blog if you want to follow along.

We had some real pros donate some time to come in and set up a high quality live feed. Might be Saturday might. Might be Sunday. When it flowers, we’ll light it until 11 p.m.

Here’s a screen capture from the lighting test tonight:

So much going on outside with the unseasonably warm weather. But my week has been tied up with setting up this live feed and other logistics with our ‘blessed event’ here at Cornell.

You won’t see anything in the stream until daylight. But we will light it when the bloom opens (possibly this weekend) until 11 p.m. Eastern Time.

While the commercial runs, you can read more about what’s going on here.

Did I mention: This species has only flowered in cultivation 140 times? If you’re in the neighborhood, it’s worth a trip over to see it.

More pictures here.

Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station greenhouse grower Jenny Rothenberg and greenhouse manager Andy Leed admire the Titan Arum, or “corpse plant,” which is expected to bloom later this week. Photo by Vitaliy Darovskikh/Cornell University