by Doug Johnson
The alien-like blooms and putrid stench of
Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around
75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than 300,000 people viewed it online.
But despite the corpse flower’s fame, its future is uncertain. The roughly 500 specimens that were living in botanical gardens and some university and private collections as of 2019 are deeply related a lack of genetic diversity that can make them more vulnerable to a host of problems, such as disease or a changing climate.
Breathing life into the corpse flower
In botanic gardens, the lineage of a famously smelly plant is threatened. Can a new collaborative program save it?
January 21, 2021 7:59PM (UTC)
A picture taken on May 14, 2020 shows a Titan Arum flower that flourished the day before at the Belgian National Botanic Gardens in Meise. - The Titan Arum is the biggest flower on earth and it takes several years for the plant to make one single flower blossom. Particular to the flower is its strong, bad smell. (LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images)