Titan arum (June Interwoven Threads yarn club)
This summer, the monthly yarn club is highlighting unique and fascinating ecosystems on our beautiful planet. I write a little about the colorway inspiration to include with the yarn, but this particular theme is so interesting to me (and hopefully you!), that I need space to tell more of the story. So, if you are a fellow nature geek, please enjoy more information on this month's feature: Titan arum (aka corpse flower), and the ecology it is a part of.
Photo credit: Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart, Creative Commons license
If you haven't had the unique experience of seeing and smelling a corpse flower, I'll bet you've heard about it through the news or social media. There are quite a few in botanical gardens in the US, and they create a lot of buzz when they bloom. In addition to being rather big and stinky, Titan arum only flowers once every 4-10 years and is only in bloom for a day or two.
The process of blooming is fascinating in itself. When the plant is not flowering it is building and storing reserve energy for the next bloom. Each year it grows a single leaf (which actually looks like a 20 foot tall tree...we have to trust the botanists that this is technically "one leaf").
Photo: Alex Lomas, Creative Commons
The leaf (tree) grows for about a year and then dies back. As it grows, the leaf creates energy and stores it in an underground corm (a tuber like a potato). Each year, the tuber sends up a new leaf (tree) that's larger than the year before, and the tuber continues to grow underground from the energy provided by the leaf. After 4-10 years of the leaf cycle, the tuber will weigh about 35 pounds and will be ready to bloom.
Are you now also trying to picture a 35 pound potato??
If you plant bulbs in your garden, you may be able to picture this process on a small scale. However, we are dealing with a plant called "titan," which means the flower we're about to watch bloom has the stored energy of a decade, instead of just a year.
Photo: Michael Neumann, Creative Commons
So big right?? It has to be the biggest flower in the world!
But it's not. Deferring to the botanists again, the green and purple thing isn't a flower, it is an inflorescence (and the biggest one in the world). The flowers are on the axis (stalk) of the inflorescence and are quite tiny.
photo: Frederick Depuydt Creative Commons
Now we get to the part you've been waiting for: the stink that titan arum produces to attract its unusual pollinators. The inflorescence of the corpse flower emits a variety of chemicals that create odors like sulfur, rotting onions, garlic, and sweaty gym socks. The combination of these smells attracts flies and beetles looking for animal remains. Titan arum even produces heat, which helps disperse its odor farther and convince the insects to crawl inside the inflorescence and pollinate the tiny flowers.
Once the flowers are pollinated, titan arum produces red berries which are eaten and dispersed by a variety of animals, including rhinoceros hornbills (a very showy bird).
photo from Paradise Chronicle, Creative Commons
Photo Bernard DUPONT, Creative Commons
Titan arum can be found in the wild on limestone hills in Sumatra, Indonesia. If you'd like to learn more, here are the resources that helped me the most in writing this post.
- Harvard Arboretum, Titan arum FAQs
- Britannica.com
- Ohio State, Titan arum
- For more info on the habitat: Gardenwise (pdf), The Limestone Flora of Sumatra
For the yarn, I included purple and green stripes for Titan arum's inflorescence, black and white for the rhinoceros hornbill, warm brown for pollinating carrion beetles, and a light tan for the limestone habitat. I really love the yarn colors of this weird piece of a fascinating ecosystem.
Nature's Interwoven Threads yarn club continues through July and August. Sign up by June 25 to get the July shipment.