Titan arum
| Titan arum | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Binominal name | ||||||||||||||
| Amorphophallus titanum |
The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is the largest flower in the world (but not the largest single flower - that distinction belongs to Rafflesia). It is taller than a man. Like its cousins the arum and the calla, it consists of a fragrant spadix of flowers wrapped by a spathe, which looks like the flower's single petal - but in this flower, the "fragrance" is of rotting meat, to attract the carrion-eatting beetles that pollinate it.
First discovered in Sumatra in 1878, the plant flowers only infrequently in the wild and even more rarely when domesticated. Specimens of this plant grown at Kew Gardens attracted worldwide attention by their flowering in 2002; they have their own web page featured on the Kew website, at http://www.kew.org/titan/index.html