Tackling the Titan!
Experts attempt to pollinate the world’s stinkiest flower
It’s one thing trying to cross-pollinate peach blossoms with a paintbrush, but how do you fertilise one of the world’s largest flowers – especially one that only blooms every few years, its outlandish, nine-foot tall, evil-smelling blossom lasting only a few hours?
This problem recently confronted gardeners and scientists at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), whose specimen of Amorphophallus titanum, the titan arum or corpse flower, last bloomed in June 2015, but this year it decided to produce another flower. World expert Dr Inayat Olmedo flew in from Basel, in Switzerland, to try to pollinate it. This involved cutting a hole at the base of the flower so pollen from plants at Cambridge and Basel botanic gardens could be used to fertilise the female part.
“For such an iconic plant there’s so much we don’t know about it,” said Dr Peter Wilkie
from RBGE. “Besides finding out how it makes its distinctive smell, we want to investigate why several of these plants are flowering in different parts of the world simultaneously.”
The plant gets its name from its flowers’ putrid scent of rotting meat which attracts pollinators (such as carrion flies and beetles) living in its tropical Sumatran forest homeland.
Early indications appear that pollination has been successful.