Zurich's corpse flower just before Bloom

the largest flower in the plant Kingdom: The Titan Arum is a rain forest plant from Sumatra in Indonesia and is related to the local Arum. Your piston can be three feet high; smaller specimens bring it to about half. The piston is surrounded by a brown-red, funnel-shaped Hüllblatt. The glory lasts but only briefly. Hours after the Blossoming of the piston stinks of fish, or Carrion, and attracts so Aaskäfer, Aasbienen and flies, which pollinate the female flowers below.

Plant wilfully

damaged this plant spectacle is also apparent in the city of Zurich. As the Botanical garden of the University of Zurich in media, writes the message, begins to bloom, the Titan Arum shortly in the greenhouse. For the past 14 years, the person in charge of the Botanical garden waiting for this moment. They had brought seeds to germinate, and it had developed into a magnificent Plant with a storage tuber.

last Friday, you had been surprised. From the Bud have developed definitely a flower Bud, says garden Director Peter Enz. The Plant's still alive, thanks to the horticultural skills. Ten years ago, several visitors had made holes in the upper arm, thick petiole wantonly with a ball-point pen, so that the Plant almost went. In Zurich, a Titan Arum blooms, is an exceptional case. The last Time such a Plant was in Bloom, is at least seventy years.

A 20-Kilo tuber

the Material for the gigantic flowering stems from a subterranean tuber. The Plant can only flower when the tuber is more than 20 kilograms. The flower appears only after a rest period of the tuber. She needs for her development of three to four months. However, it blooms only during a very short period of time.

very often you can experience this spectacle in Basel, Switzerland. Finally, a 20-year – old Titan Arum in the year 2014-flourished there for the third Time in a few years. With a height of 255 cm, the Plant was then even larger than in the years 2011 and 2012. "It was a magnificent guy," commented the Basel gardener, your Titan Arum proud of.

In Zurich is expected to be a modest guy, it was a rather small specimen, says Enz. The exact flowering time, as well as the bloom end are not exactly predictable; it is likely to happen over the Easter days.

The Titan Arum is in Botanical gardens in zollikerstrasse 107, 8008 Zürich daily from 9.30 am to 16.45 PM. (Tages-Anzeiger)

Created: 18.04.2019, 09:18 PM