{"id":216972,"date":"2010-01-16T10:28:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-16T15:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green.yahoo.com\/blog\/greenpicks\/269\/rare-corpse-plant-blooms-at-milwaukee-public-museum.html"},"modified":"2010-01-16T10:28:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T15:28:13","slug":"rare-%e2%80%9ccorpse-plant%e2%80%9d-blooms-at-milwaukee-public-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/216972","title":{"rendered":"Rare \u201ccorpse plant\u201d blooms at Milwaukee Public Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"image
\n
(Photo: Milwaukee Public Museum)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Milwaukee
\nPublic Museum’s titan arum<\/a> flowered on January 15, 2010 after a month-long
\nwait. Most of us will never get to see a blooming titan arum<\/a>
\nin person because they are endangered in the wild and are not all that common
\nin cultivation. It takes several years for the plant to bloom and then the
\nflower (one of the world’s largest) only lasts for a short time. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The titan arum
\nis one of the wonders of the plant world because of its sheer size and rapid rate
\nof growth,” says Neil Luebke, curator of botany at the Milwaukee Public Museum.\n<\/p>\n

Indeed, the museum’s titan arum, which stands at 7 feet 8 \u00bd inches tall, grew
\nseveral inches a day since the shoot emerged from the soil in mid-December. The
\nplant expends so much energy growing so quickly that it can’t sustain itself
\nfor long and usually only stays open for two days, according to Luebke.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Known as the
\nworld’s tallest flower, the titan arum is technically the world’s largest
\nunbranched cluster of flowers. (The largest single flower is rafflesia arnoldii<\/a>, which
\ncan grow up to 3 feet wide.) In the wild titan arums can grow to be over ten
\nfeet tall, but in cultivation the world
\nrecord is 9.55 feet<\/a>. A spokeswoman at the museum dubbed the exotic plant:
\nthe “Godzilla of the plant world.”\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

A blooming titan
\narum usually draws large crowds because it’s so rare, but also because of the
\nfoul odor it emits. It smells like rotting flesh or decaying meat, which is why
\nit’s also known as the “corpse plant.” The smell is so intense that the human nose can
\ndetect it from over a half mile away<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The horrid smell
\nattracts pollinators from afar. In nature the corpse plant only grows in the
\nrainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. They are threatened because of rain forest
\ndestruction. The International Union of Conservation lists them as vulnerable. <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"image
\n
(Photo: Milwaukee Public Museum)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo: Milwaukee Public Museum) The Milwaukee Public Museum’s titan arum flowered on January 15, 2010 after a month-long wait. Most of us will never get to see a blooming titan arum in person because they are endangered in the wild and are not all that common in cultivation. It takes several years for the plant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3953,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3953"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}