[HN Gopher] Corpse Flower Bloom
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Corpse Flower Bloom
Author : Barrera
Score : 59 points
Date : 2022-06-22 11:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.huntington.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.huntington.org)
| julienchastang wrote:
| A corpse flower recently bloomed at the Denver Botanic Gardens
| [0]. I saw it, but unfortunately it had already wilted. I did not
| notice much of a smell. BTW, if you happen to be in the area, the
| Denver Botanic Gardens is a great way to spend an afternoon [1].
|
| [0] https://www.denverpost.com/2022/06/17/corpse-flower-
| denver-b...
|
| [1] https://www.botanicgardens.org/york-street
| jessriedel wrote:
| During the period when the corm produces a flower rather than a
| leaf, does the flower do any photosynthesizing, or does the
| energy to construct the flower come completely from the corm's
| stores? Wouldn't it need to photosynthesize just to fix the
| carbon to build the flower? (My understanding is that almost all
| the mass of plants comes from water and from carbon dioxide in
| the air, with the soil contributing mostly just trace minerals.)
| camtarn wrote:
| Reply from my partner, a horticulturist at RBGE who works with
| the titan arum: "It's green so it's almost certainly is doing
| some photosynthesis but almost all of the energy is coming from
| the corm. There's enough energy in the corm to produce a
| flower, seeds and fruit; this can take 9 months, and during
| that period there's basically just a stump, no leaf. The corm
| depletes vastly after flowering. The titan arum we have is so
| big it seems to manage to have enough energy to produce a leaf
| again after flowering. Most just die after flowering and
| fruiting."
| mathieubordere wrote:
| Here's the livestream for the one in my hometown's botanical
| garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tP69m3t90
| reidjs wrote:
| Here's a Timelapse of one of these things opening
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H6P6p9xXEY0
| russfink wrote:
| Fabulous! Thanks!
| camtarn wrote:
| Good timing - the titan arum at the Royal Botanic Garden
| Edinburgh is about to flower! My partner manages the Twitter
| account (in the persona of the plant itself) and I've just been
| bribed with pizza to give him a lift back to work tonight in case
| it opens up :)
|
| https://twitter.com/TitanArumRBGE
|
| Here's some more info on the carefully-managed conditions
| required to get the plant to thrive:
|
| https://www.rbge.org.uk/news/amorphophallus-titanum/backgrou...
| usmannk wrote:
| One of the ones in SF bloomed just last weekend! Was very cool
| to see. Their lifecycle is very interesting too -- an earlier
| stage of the plant is a large tree-like structure that is
| actually just a leaf! One of those was present as well.
| mallomarmeasle wrote:
| Great Latin name: Amorphophallus titanium: "giant misshapen
| phallus"
|
| Perhaps I do not have the details correct, but I was told this
| story: Kew Gardens had one of these flower in their greenhouse
| many years ago, when they were very unusual in "captivity".
| Another botanical garden (perhaps the one in St. Louis)
| subsequently was able to get one to flower, and the bloom was
| quite a bit larger. They printed up T-shirts that said "My
| Amorphophallus is bigger than yours"
| dekhn wrote:
| The one in SF is currently flaccid.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FANXYhhWj6E
| rob74 wrote:
| Apparently the Germans (from Bonn) can boast about the largest
| Amorphophallus: 3 meters high in 2003 (https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum#Descrip...).
|
| I wonder if some botanical gardens also think about getting
| some carrion-eating flies and beetles (which are normally
| attracted to the flower and pollinate it) to make the
| experience more complete?
| m34 wrote:
| TIL! Initially I thought about the sprouting corpses in Grim
| Fandango, but I'll make it a stop for my next visit to the
| botanical garden in munich:
| https://www.botmuc.de/en/garden/gh_victoria_house.html
|
| There at least the giant lily needs to be pollinated by hand
| as they are lacking the specialized beetles
| https://www.botmuc.de/en/audio_tour/202.html so I'd assume
| some gardens do think about these matters.
| leeoniya wrote:
| there was a rare triplet bloom in Chicago but it was closed to
| the public due to COVID :(
|
| https://www.chicagobotanic.org/titan/velvet_queen
| crisnoble wrote:
| We had one bloom in San Diego last fall, and I was very excited
| to smell something super pungent. It kinds of smelled like wet
| dirt, which was not much different than any other time inside an
| indoor greenhouse. It looked amazing, and was worth going just
| for that, but the smell was very underwhelming.
| daveslash wrote:
| The one up in Encinitas? Yeah, I saw that one too! Cool stuff.
| I also noticed an underwhelming smell.
| arcticbull wrote:
| "Amorphophallus titanum" - really? That's the best name they
| could come up with?
| SamBam wrote:
| This is when YouTube needs 4x, 8x and 16x speeds.
| jerf wrote:
| YouTube (or more accurately the HTML video element) can go as
| fast as your computer can handle, the UI just doesn't surface
| it. Currently I use this bookmarklet: javascr
| ipt:void(document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].playbackRate
| = prompt())
|
| On another computer I have a variant that just sets that to all
| the video tags, as that works better on some sites, but this
| catches most video sites. I could have sworn I had a browser
| limiting me to 4x at one point but I just cranked a YouTube
| video up to 8x on my Chrome-based browser without anything
| objecting. I'm not sure what the limit is, and it may depend on
| your computer.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think this is a better case for timelapse photography than
| sped up video.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I can imagine why it's called corpse flower. I went on a
| backpacking trip through a rainforest in Thailand. There is
| similar flower there that's giant and smells like rotting flesh.
| They are quite impressive to see in person!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafflesia
| teh_klev wrote:
| Looking at that is giving me a mild dose of trypophobia, even
| with just one opening.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| I am reminded of the stinkhorn, a mushroom which also smells like
| a corpse and which also has a phallus shape. I'm fortunate to
| have never smelled the corpse flower, but I have seen it. I am
| not so fortunate to have never smelled stinkhorns, however.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallaceae
| ryangittins wrote:
| If one of these blooms near you, it's worth checking out! I can't
| speak to whether or not it stinks like a corpse, but I stuck my
| head down in there and it was certainly reminiscent of a juicy
| dumpster on a hot day.
| crazyjncsu wrote:
| I've seen a couple of these blooms--- first at the NCSU Plant
| Biology greenhouse and then at Tony Avent's Plant Delights
| nursery.
|
| Both were spectacular. Neither smelled at all.
|
| I think the smell may only last for a short period, likely
| before the bloom peaks. We didn't want to jump the gun on the
| bloom, so we visited a day after we heard it bloomed.
| ryangittins wrote:
| I wasn't able to smell it at all from a few feet away, but
| the one I saw recently wasn't roped off so I was pretty much
| able to stick my head right in the bloom.
| camtarn wrote:
| Yep, the smell dissipates pretty quickly, likely dispersed by
| the flower heating itself up about 10degC above ambient.
|
| I visited the bloom my partner works with on the day after it
| opened, and while he attested that it was pretty stinky on
| opening, it wasn't really much to smell when I was there.
| contingencies wrote:
| Tangentially, Sumatra and western Sumatra in particular are
| pretty interesting. They have possibly the best curry in
| Indonesia (beef rendang), different linguistic groups such as the
| Minangkabau[0], and just northwest off the coast they have one of
| the best natural surf breaks in the world.[1] A flooded volcano
| caldera to the north was a major point on the hippy trail in the
| 1970s[2], and one of the most impressive taxidermy museums on
| earth lies in Medan.[3] Critical in the historic interchange of
| ideas between Arabia, South and East Asia which formed the
| uniquely Indo-Chinese basis for Southeast Asian history,
| elsewhere on Sumatra they still have unexcavated ancient cities
| surpassing the scale of Angkor Wat.
|
| [0] Whose Wikipedia I had a small part in approving:
| https://min.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laman_Utamo [1]
| http://www.visitniasisland.com/surfing/ [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba [3]
| http://www.rahmatgallery.com/
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I don't particularly care for The Huntington. It is an
| extraordinary place that unfortunately came off as greedy. Entry
| is $25 per person. They have a nine figure endowment.
|
| Perhaps they over reached on budget and needed a way to balance
| the books? It might also be priced like that to keep the rabble
| out. If it walks like elitism, and talks like elitism, etc.
|
| It's a shame -- it really is an otherworldly achievement. One of
| the finest botanical gardens in the world.
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