Rare flowers disappearing from Sumatra rain forests

Theresia Sufa, Bogor

The gigantic and pungent Titan Arum or Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum), which can reach up to three and a half meters in height, is slowly disappearing from its native Sumatra rain forests and increasingly blooming in foreign places.

Botanist Yuzammi said that the conversion of Sumatra rain forests, the plant's natural habitat, into residential areas was threatening the existence of the endangered plant.

He warned that it was likely that one day the plants, the putrid odor of which is used to attract insects for pollination, would soon no longer be found growing in Sumatra.

In contrast, the plant, the stench of which has been described as a mix of rotting vegetables and excrement, is being cultivated by about 600 botanical gardens and arboretums throughout the globe, according to Yuzammi.

"In the 1970s through the 1980s a lot of foreign researchers collected the plant's tubers and took them back to their countries," said Yuzammi, who conducts research at the Bogor Botanical Gardens, which has 10 of the plants.

He added, however, that most of the researchers had taken the plants out of the country illegally and as such, stronger laws were needed to prevent the continuing poaching of the plants, which can grow up to 10 centimeters a day.

The Titan Arum, discovered in 1878 by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari, is the world's largest cluster of flowers, larger than the Rafflesia arnoldii, which scientifically is the largest true flower. Because of its sheer size, the plant, the Latin name of which means shapeless phallus, was once thought to be a man- eating plant.

The plant, which mostly lies dormant underground in the form of a 75-kilogram tuber and blooms only once every couple of years, was first cultivated outside Indonesia, from seeds sent by Beccari, at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England.

The blooming of the crimson colored flowers, which lasts only a couple of days, is often treated like a rock concert, visited by droves of people who want to witness firsthand the rare phenomenon.

There have been less than 20 recorded blooms in the United States, with the 1999 blooming at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in California attracting 76,000 visitors during a 19-day period.