Pollinating a giant

Amorphophallus titanum are naturally self incompatible, so an additional pollen source is required. Thanks to University of Wisconsin, River falls for shipping pollen from their bloom to make a pollination attempt. Pollination must be done first thing once the flower is fully open and the odor is strong. This odor is a mechanism to attract beetles and other insects to pollinate the flower when receptive. It appears the pollination was a success. You will see a small window cut in the bottom of the spathe in order to pollinate it. The flower is very large, and it is difficult to pollinate because of limited access to the pistillate flowers.

The titan arum blooms!

Lupin opened fully on September 22, at around 6 PM. Measured 76" tall by 38" wide at the spathe. Such an amazing plant! The bloom event was open to the public and had approximately 5,000 guests during the weekend when it was in bloom at the conservatory at NC State University. Lupin was listed on Wikipedia as the 227 reported bloom in cultivation. Thanks to Diane Mays for helping make this possible, and allowing Lupin to be housed in the Conservatory.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_publicised_titan_arum_blooms_in_cultivation

The growth rates of Amorphophallus titanum are incredible at this stage, I was measuring 6" of daily growth. The flower is really starting to develop and is gaining in mass. Here it is September 12, 2016. #Lupin2016

At this stage you know you have a flower bud developing. You can see the spathe showing. Photo taken September 8, 2016

After 13 years from seed, my Amorphophallus titanum has developed it's first flower bud. It is typical for them to take 10-15 years until the first bloom. At this stage it can be very tricky to identify whether it is a flower or a leaf petiole. This later turned out to be a flower bud. We named it Lupin and it became the hashtag of  #lupin2016  Photo taken August 30, 2016

Amorphophallus titanum

It's amazing how fast plants can grow. Shown here is a comparison of Amorphophallus titanum, just 5 months later. These plants complete an annual growth cycle, one leaf per year. Each leaf will remain for up to one year. This specimen is about 2 years from flowering size.

 

Poinsettia crop showing nice color