Corpse flower ends bloom

The university “corpse flower,” the rare plant native to Sumatra that attracted thousands of visitors to a campus greenhouse, has ended its bloom.

As shown on a live Web cam trained on the plant, the “corpse flower” spadix and structures around it began to collapse Monday, June 11.

Botany professor Paul Berry says the male flowers apparently finished their cycle earlier. It appears that the pollination Thursday evening and again Friday has likely been successful. Berry says the plant is now devoting its energies to forming fruit.

The plant’s spathe, or flower, began to open around 12:30 p.m. June 7 and was in full bloom and full aroma by Thursday evening. But sometime during the night, it closed up, never to re-open.

With the number of visitors now expected to dwindle significantly, the viewing hours will be cut back. The greenhouse will be open to the public from noon to 4 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, June 11 and 12. After Tuesday, those wishing to visit should call (608) 262-2235 to check on the hours.

The titan arum or “corpse flower” is noted for a malodorous stench given off by blooms that can have a diameter of as much as four feet. The nascent bloom at UW–Madison, exceedingly rare among cultivated titan arum plants, is the first in Wisconsin and may be only the 12th recorded U.S. bloom.

Strictly speaking, it isn’t a “true” flower at all, but an “inflorescence,” or collection of flowers, which emerges at the end of a long dormant period, growing up to 4 inches a day over a period of about three weeks. As the pale yellow spike reaches maturity, the spathe opens out to form a vast, ribbed, frilly-edged trumpet, greenish on the outside but deep maroon within.

In its native equatorial rain forest, the titan arum depends on carrion beetles and sweat bees to carry pollen from one plant to another. The plant’s notorious odor, described as a cross between rotting flesh and burnt sugar, helps attract the insects that it depends on for reproduction.

The UW–Madison titan arum is less than eight years old and was grown from seed collected in Sumatra, Indonesia, on the same expedition where David Attenborough filmed the BBC series “The Secret Life of Plants.”