Titan arum lily flowers now in Stellenbosch
One of the world’s largest flower structures which only blooms every 6-15 years is now in full bloom at the Stellenbosch University Botanical Gardens (SUBG).
This gigantic Titan Arum Lily (Amorphophallus titanium) is currently in full flower. This is one of the world’s largest flower structures and the flower lasts up to 48 hours in total. This is the second individual in Southern Africa to flower. Having begun to open on 12 December 2022 at around 15:00, the minutes tick by until the phenomenon will be over.
Bruce Esau, one of the staff at SUBG, commented and said: “We’ve re-potted the Titan Arum Lily for the last two years and have noted a significant growth in corm size. We’ve been waiting 15 years for this moment!”
The size of the titan arum lily isn’t its only fascinating attribute, the flower also produces a foul stench similar to refuse and heats itself up to 36 degrees Celsius – a mechanism aiding in the diffusion of that foul stench. This is to attract flies to pollinate it, mimicking the odour of a rotting corpse. On years it does not produce a flower it produces a large leaf to absorb and store-up resources over the years to eventually have enough energy to produce a flower again. As the corm increases in size, the flower structure generally also increases in size, eventually reaching heights of around 3m in full bloom.
This flower is indigenous to the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia and highly endangered with only about 1000 specimens left in the wild. Habitat loss is the main driver for this flower going endangered. Land that used to be dense tropical forests and the Titan Arum Lily’s majestic home are now vast areas of palm oil plantations. Though we aren’t directly involved in the conservation of the Titan Arum Lily itself, the spectacle of the flower at the gardens is a wonderful educational prompt to the public.
The Titan Arum Lily is a good example of the urgency of conservation efforts needed to protect and nurture indigenous species. Our own local Fynbos suffers from a similar level of pressure from land-use change from surrounding agricultural and residential zones. Although not as large or smelly, the fynbos is home to numerous breathtakingly beautiful flowers that only occur there and are rapidly yet silently being lost.
SUBG staff have made huge efforts to mitigate species loss and continue to educate and promote conservation of our local and endemic habitats. An example of this is their new cape lowland habitat beds, harbouring habitat fragments from surrounding areas, such as Littlefoot, Koringberg, Duthie Nature Reserve and Blaauwberg, all highly pressured by urbanisation and alien invasives.