Smells like death, looks like… an Amorphophallus?

Common Name(s): Corpse Flower, Titan Arum

A.K.A.: Amorphophallus titanum

Found: Sumatra, Western Indonesia

It Does What?!

Looking like something from an Enterprise away mission, this is a plant you won’t soon forget. For those who imagine that biologists don’t have a sense of humour, the scientific name of the Corpse Flower is Amorphophallus titanum, which is Latin for ‘giant misshapen penis.’ And it’s not a bad description; the plant produces a… well, vaguely penis-shaped bloom that grows up to three feet tall and, as if we needed more to snicker about, produces pulses of heat which move from the base to the tip, reaching temperatures of over 36 degrees Celcius (97 Fahrenheit).

It’s actually a bit of a misnomer to call this phallic monstrosity a flower- it’s really an inflorescence, a structure on which smaller, individual flowers grow. In the case of Amorphophallus, that cone in the middle is called a spadix (think calla lilies or jack-in-the-pulpit… same plant family), and holds upwards of 900 tiny flowers, of which about half are male and half are female.

Naturally, all those tiny little flowers need to get pollinated in order to create more giant-penis-plants, and the pollinators of choice for Amorphophallus are carrion beetles and blowflies. How to attract the attention of your favoured pollinators in a busy Sumatran rainforest? You give them what they want – the stench of rotting flesh. Those pulses of heat I mentioned before actually serve a purpose; they work like a convection oven, throwing off a foul odour which rises above the canopy as the warmer air rises. This allows the scent signal to be carried over greater distances. And how bad does it smell? Researchers of the plant note that a principal chemical component of that funk is known to also be the main source of the delicate bouquet that is rotting human flesh. Mmm… For another overly-vivid mental picture, be sure to check out a close relative of the Corpse Flower, Helicodiceros muscivorus, a.k.a. Dead Horse Arum.

Says Who?

• Barthlott et al. (2009) Plant Biology 11: 499-505.
• Shirasu et al. (2010) Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem. 74(12): 2550-2554.