So everyone gets all excited about the big ole corpse flower Amorphophallus titanum, but there are actually many other species in the genus! Lets explore one.
Neat eh?
So as I mentioned, there are actual several species of Amorphophallus, to the tune of about 200 actually. There is a LOT of variety in the genus and they are quite amazing. The titanum of course gets all the credit for having the largest inflorescence in the world. Now, that means that it is a flowering structure not a single flower. Male flowers are found on the top of the spadix (the center) and the females are on the bottom. The spathe circles the spadix here.
The largest SINGLE flower in the world is also bonkers cool and has been written up in POTD way back in the days before blog format, it is a Rafflesia arnoldii which is also commonly called a corpse flower and is actually found in habitat quite close to the titanum I believe (Sumatra). It is also fascinating and well worth a look up. One giant parasitic flower, 3 feet across and 24 pounds. WHOA!
Rafflesia: Careful, don't fall in.
Growth on these is quite different than the usual vegetative growth and then flower. This planted decided to write the book a little differently. It either puts on one huge leaf for a year, then goes dormant OR puts on one (relatively still) huge flower and then goes dormant. Obviously the flower of this is smaller and likewise so is the tuber. Tubers of the titanum can easily clear 40lbs. Oh yes, a tuber, it grows from a big ole tuber underground. Think of it kinda like a weird potato ...that makes a stinky flower.
Anyways, this particular species is endemic to Taiwan, is obviously much smaller, and is one of the few that is apomictic which means that is can sometimes set some viable seed prior to pollination.
Blue fruit is cool. Like bow-ties.
It will also form some rooting offsets from the main tuber it looks like. Someone tried to distinguish another species A. niimurai from A. henryi on the grounds of hairs on the spadix but apparently there is quite a bit of natural variation between clones. Also very closely related to A. hirtus which IS an accepted name. There is your taxonomic nitpicking again.
Leaf state. Picture from somewhere, not many of them so don't be mad.
The things I dig up... http://edepot.wur.nl/296706
Great detail pictures here: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~alan/plants/aroids/amorphophallus/henryi/
And if you made it this far, you deserve some time lapse of what the leaf (yes, singular) looks like as it unfurls. ENJOY!
http://plantgasm.com/archives/5557
Those berries look like the berries that get their color from structure (nano materials) http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34200/title/Color-from-Structure/
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