Download King Pong at the Botanics - Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

King Pong at the Botanics
Visitors flocking to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) in the coming weeks
need only follow their noses to track down the latest flowering spectacle, for there is no
mistaking the pungent smell of rotting flesh that will be emitted by the Garden’s giant
Amorphophallus titanum (titan arum).
This will be the first time that a titan arum has flowered in Scotland and visitors are
expected to make a beeline to the Glasshouses to see if the massive flower lives up to
its reputation.
The plant, already set to make it into the record books for having the heaviest corm ever
recorded, now looks like earning another world title for the largest flower.
The titan arum is a giant among plants, with a massive flowering structure that rises
some three metres above the ground. A single leaf reaches a height of six metres and a
spread of five metres and looks like a small tree rather than the herbaceous plant that it
actually is. Its flowering is rare and unpredictable, so staff at the Garden are delighted
that their careful nurturing of the plant for the past eight years has finally paid off.
Senior Horticulturist Steve Scott, who was gifted the corm in 2003 by Hortus Botanicus
in Leiden, Netherlands, explained: “The plant has being growing and preparing for this
moment all its life. When the huge inflorescence finally opens, in around 4 weeks time,
the bloom will only be open for 2 or 3 days when the infamous smell will be released for
all to enjoy. As well as a smelliest it is also the biggest and it can grow to over three
metres tall. Over the next few weeks the bloom will increase in height by up to 15cm
day!”
Successfully bringing the titan arum to the point of flowering has involved replicating the
conditions it would experience in the rainforests of Sumatra. The Wet Tropics House
provides the required high humidity and temperatures. During the day the temperatures
are between 22-25 degrees centigrade, and by night above a minimum of 19 degrees
centigrade. The 1,000 litre pot is watered with a high potash liquid fertiliser (Tomato
Food) and care is taken to avoid waterlogged conditions as this could cause the corm to
rot. Often an Amorphophallus titanum will die after flowering, but with careful cultivation
a plant can continue to produce more leaves or flowers in subsequent years.
In August last year, staff at the Garden had to borrow scales from Edinburgh Zoo to
weigh the corm which at an impressive £153.95kgs, smashed the existing world record
of 117kgs, held by Bonn Botanic Gardens, Germany, by 36.95kgs. At the time of the
weigh in it had grown from the size of an orange to measuring 952mm wide and 426mm
high with a circumference of 280cm.
More work is needed to establish the conservation status of titan arum in the wild. It is
currently only known from the Bukit Barisan range of mountains in West Sumatra and is
classified as Vulnerable (V) on the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants.
Sumatra is part of RBGE’s ongoing research in Southeast Asia on diverse tropical plant
families including the gingers (Zingiberaceae), begonias (Begoniaceae), Gesneriaceae
and tropical trees in the Sapotaceae and Malvaceae.
Ends
For further information or images, please contact Sandra Donnelly on 0131 248 1037 or
Shauna Hay on 0131 248 2900.
Editor’s Notes:
The titan arum was first collected by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari in 1878 and has
been a botanical curiosity ever since.
It has recently been discovered that on two consecutive nights during flowering certain
parts of the inflorescence heat up by 10 degrees centigrade. This heating coincides with
the opening of first the female and then the male flowers, and helps to spread the smell
and attract carrion flies and beetles that act as pollinators. This heating of the
inflorescence, by a process called thermogenesis, is a feature of the arum family –
Araceae. More familiar members of the family that also heat up are the native cuckoo
pint or lords-and-ladies, Arum maculatum, and the popular house plant know as the
swiss cheese plant, Monstera delicosa.
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), dating back to1670, is a Non Departmental
Public Body established under the National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985, principally
funded by the Scottish Government. It is also a registered charity, managed by a Board
of Trustees who are appointed by Ministers. Its mission is “exploring and explaining the
world of plants for a better future” and its primary functions are as a centre of scientific
and horticultural excellence, keeper of the national collections and promoter of science
in the public domain.
The four Gardens of RBGE - Edinburgh, Benmore, Dawyck and Logan - are numbered
among the most popular visitor attractions in Scotland, bringing together many interrelated cultural areas of activity.