Amorphophallus titanium-Corpse flower
GS PAPER II: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Context: Over a thousand people queued up outside an abandoned gas station in San Francisco’s Bay Area to catch a glimpse of the ‘corpse flower’.
Amorphophallus titanium-Corpse flower
- Known for its putrid smell, which is often compared to that of rotting flesh.
- This ultra-rare plant is known to bloom only once every seven to ten years.
- The flower is also considered to be one of the largest in the world.
- While the plant is native to Indonesia, its saplings have been cultivated in zoos, botanical gardens and greenhouses around the world over the years.
- It can grow to be up to 10 feet tall and known to be one of the world’s largest ‘unbranched inflorescence’ or a stalk bearing a cluster of flowers.
- It emits a heady odour in order to attract pollinating insects in the wild such as scavenging flies and beetles.
- It was listed as an endangered plant in 2018 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
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