Latest Flora of Indonesia Stories
By Chris Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - An arum by any other name would smell as rank -- so it's just called the corpse flower. Crowds flocked to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Friday to see what the big stink was about -- the rare blooming of a cultivated amorphophallus titanum, one of the world's largest flowers. It also is perhaps the world's most foul-smelling plant and puts out an aroma not unlike rotting meat or fish. "I had to wear a respirator," said Alessandro Chiari, a plant...
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - Hundreds of visitors filed through a Virginia Tech greenhouse to get a glimpse, and a whiff, of a powerfully malodorous "corpse flower" as it bloomed.The large Indonesian plant, whose botanical name is Amorphophallus titanum, began opening up about 6 p.m. Friday and was in full bloom by early Saturday morning, curator Debbie Wiley-Vawter said in a telephone interview Monday.The plant emits a stench to attract decaying flesh-eating beetles, flies and sweat bees...
BERLIN (Reuters) - The world's tallest -- and smelliest -- flower has bloomed, reaching a height of 2.94 meters, 18 centimeters more than the previous record for the species, the Stuttgart botanical garden said on Friday. The Titan Arum, or Amorphophallus Titanum, nicknamed "corpse flower" because of its putrid stench, blooms rarely and briefly. Garden staff have nicknamed the purple flower "Diva" and are charting its life on their web site, www.wilhelma.de. But those keen for a...
MADISON, Wis. -- Big Bucky's back. The rare, big and extremely stinky flower that caused a sensation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when it last bloomed in 2001 could become the world's largest flower when it blooms again next week. The titan arum stood at 6 feet, 4 inches Thursday in a UW-Madison greenhouse, on pace to rival the world record for cultivated flowers when it blooms and releases its trademark roadkill scent in the coming days. Botanists hope it will surpass the record of...
SAN FRANCISCOÂ -- A giant, stinky flower is attracting a nosy crowd to San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers this holiday weekend. The titan arum, more commonly known as the "corpse flower," is set to bloom for the first time in two years. The plant celebrity is world-famous for the big stink it makes when it opens for three or four days every few years. The flower is known both for its scent, which has been compared to dirty gym socks or rotting meat, and its size. The...
Latest Flora of Indonesia Reference Libraries
The Asian Palmyra Palm, Borassus flabellifer, is a plant in the Borassus genus. Other names for the tree are the toddy palm, sugar palm, and Cambodian palm. It is a vigorous tree, living 100 years or more. It is held aloft at 98 feet high on a large, sturdy trunk that resembles a coconut, and is ringed with leaf scars. The leaves create a canopy of several dozen fronds spreading across 10 feet. Growth of these trees is slow in the beginning, but speeds up as it begins to mature. It is...
The African Fan Palm, Borassus aethiopium is an African palm of the Borassus genus. It has a numerous list of English terms for the plant including African palmyra palm, deleb palm, ron palm, toddy palm, black rhun palm, ronier palm (French term), and others. Its African names are even more numerous. The tree offers many practical uses such as edible fruit, fiber from leaves, and termite-proof wood for construction. At least two varieties of this species exist, bagamojensis and...
