'Penis plant' in bloom in the Ghent Botanical Garden
Great news with a scent from the Botanical Garden: one of the Giant Arums is blooming!
Access to the Botanical Garden is currently limited, with a free timeslot reservation. You can follow the bloom live via YouTube Live. Put on some music and enjoy. Much better than a Netflix series.
A Giant Arum (Latin name Amorphophallus titanum) is currently blooming in the greenhouses of the Ghent Botanical Garden. A special event. A Giant Arum - also called corpse plant or penis plant - flowers for the first time after about 10 years. After that, the plant will flower a little more regularly (every three years). The Ghent Botanical Garden has been lucky enough to have such a Giant arum in bloom several times in recent years. The previous times this was a big crowd puller. Last year when the Botanical Garden was closed during the first lockdown, the live streaming of the flowering of Giant Arum Anne was an online hit.
The plant which is now blooming was given the name 'Titaantje' (Little Titan). It is the second time that it will bloom.
It is difficult to predict when the flower will bloom exactly. Probably in the week of May 17. If you would like to see it live, book your free timeslot. Please note: you can only reserve 1 timeslot per person for that week.
You can follow it live via the Youtube Live above.
The Laboratory for Functional Plant Biology of Ghent University, lead by Professor Dominique Van Der Straeten, will use an infrared camera to register the heat production of the plant during the flowering process for further research.
