Sunday, September 6, 2009

Three tenors...sorry, four

I am not exactly singing praises but to have four Amorphophalluses blooming all at once is quite unusual in my years of growing these plants. From the top photo, the plants are A. paenifolius (top), A. albidus (left) and koratensis (right). The miniature one at the front appears to be A. obscurus.

A. albidus is supposed to be nice smelling but none was detected. Instead, the largest one, A. paenifolius was reeking - dog faeces if you need a more precise description....so the job of putting them together for this family shot had not been very pleasant ....

All these plants are from Indo-China region, which, unlike the Sumatran species, tend to be easier to grow for the climate here. Like all Amorphophalluses, each of the bulb only produce only 1 leaf during its growing cycle before going dormant again. Sometimes, this event may be preceeded by the appearance of an inflorescence, if they are amorous, but bulbs do not generally bloom every season as much energy will be expended.

3 comments:

Hermes said...

Fantastic. Blooms from that genus are a very rare event over here.

Claude said...

I've always found these plants fascinating, but our climate isn't really suitable for them. I could nurse them through, but it would be a little to labor intensive for me...

wonderful picture though.

Hort Log said...

Yes they are real oddities. Those shown here are probably the easier ones, I have many others that have never blooomed before.

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