Rare flowers disappearing from Sumatra rain forests

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.