Dr Uwe Stroeher visits Amorphophallus titanium at Adelaide Botanic Gardens

On Tuesday evening, 25 March 2025, I was privileged to be guest of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, invited to witness a corpse flower or Amorphophallus titanium, in full bloom and, I have to say, it really is a sight (and smell) to behold!

Matt Coulter, the curator and a world expert in these unique plants, gave us a tour of their collection and shared some facts I found really interesting.

Now, as the Neutrog R&D department have a close working relationship with Matt and his team, I have previously seen some of the research and breeding work they have been doing with their corpse flower collection, but I’ve never had a chance to see one in during this very small flowering window.

Fascinatingly, the whole plant is made up of just one, single leaf. When it emerges from the ground, they can’t tell whether it will just be a leaf, perhaps 3 meters tall branching out to look like a tree, or will it be a flower?

The leaf itself is unique, mottled to appear as if covered with lichen. This is evolutionary mimicry to confuse herbivores into thinking it’s a tree trunk and not a soft, fleshy leaf. Then there is the seven years it takes for one single flower. If that flower is pollinated by insects attracted to the unique smell, the plant fruits and then dies. If it doesn’t get pollinated, it may flower again in 3 to 5 years. The reason it takes so long to flower again, is the energy expended by the plant is so huge, it takes that long to recover. The corm, from which the flower originates, can weigh over 75kg but by the time it has finished flowering it can be down to 20 to 25 kg all due to the energy needed to put on this spectacular display. The flower is only open for a day or two, a very short period to be fertilised, so it does the best job it can to attract insects.

We’ve all heard about the smell, but in fact the plant actually ‘pulses’ out the odour - it puffs it, so to speak. The plant also heats the spadix, the fleshy upright column, up to 38 degrees to get air to move up like a chimney to distribute the smell.  All this for one day of flowering - astounding!

It is estimated that there are less than 1000 Amorphophallus titanium remaining. So botanic gardens all over the world are involved in the conservation effort.  Last year Adelaide Botanic Gardens had two plants flower within two days. So, at 3am Matt and his team got up and went in and cross pollinated. From this effort they obtained fruit and harvested several hundred seeds. These resulted in well over 100 new plants which can now be distributed to other gardens around the world.

NB - the flowering has now ended and the flower is not on public display.