(no narration)
The really crazy thing about this time because it will be the third time that UNC Charlotte
has bloomed one of these. But the really amazing thing this time is that we may have a chance
to pollenate this plant and that’s something that no other botanical garden in the United
States has really had the opportunity to do by using pollen from a live plant nearby.
The way we were able to do this is Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden by rare chance had
a Titan just bloom. So their Titan, they named Morpheus, and it bloomed on Tuesday. This
has not yet opened. When it opens, this whole sheath, it turns maroon inside and it starts
to, it literally kind of uncurls and just starts to flare open and then it will look
like a flared open. It’s really quite beautiful and that’s when the stench, though, starts
to come. Yes, the stench! (Laughter) The stench, it actually, this plant heats up. First time
Bella bloomed, we put a temperature probe in and it heated up by probably about 4 or
5 degrees above what the ambient was in order to send off waves of this smell of rotten
flesh, rotten meat. So, you know, if you’ve ever encountered road kill or a dead rat in
your garage, that is the smell. That is what it smells like. And it really does kind of
come in waves so you’ll be sitting here and it will almost make your eyes burn. The
thing is that phase only lasts for about 12 hours and when these often open at night and
a lot of times we miss the stinkiest part. Some people are sad about that, other people
are very glad to have missed the worst of the stench. I can say that when Bella bloomed
the first time and I drove home, I had my windows up because it was hot, I had the air
conditioning on. When I got in my car the next morning, I could smell it. It was permeated
in the car. And when I came home, my husband also commented on it. But it’s very, very
strong. So that flares open and what’s happening in nature is that intense smell of rotting
meat is an attractant. We don’t think of it as an attractant, so what is it attracting?
It’s attracting something that wants to go to dead rotting meat which are flies and
beetles that lay their eggs in carcasses. So this plant is fooling these animals, these
insects, into thinking that it’s like a rotting elephant. And they come to fertilize,
excuse me, to lay their eggs. They crawl down into this spade portion, get down where the
flowers are and where the scent is emitting from, and then that night the spade will sort
of close up partially and they get a little bit trapped in there. They can’t get out
till pollen is shed on them and then they crawl back out. The idea is they have to find,
you know, the Titan’s purpose is for them to find another Titan so how do you do that
in a jungle, in a hot, steamy jungle? You better put out a big stink so it’s really,
you know, people ask why would a plant do this? But it’s just like anything, it’s
a reproductive strategy and it has to do with the environment that they grow in. But it’s
just one of these amazing things in nature that where they grow, their strategy is to
put all this energy, a year’s worth of energy, into one giant, stinky, short-lived bloom.
They’re putting their eggs all in one basket but apparently it’s worked because you know
they have become plants famous the world over. We went over and attempted to collect pollen.
What’s fascinating, the pollen is down at the base of the plant and actually in order
to reach it, we had to cut a little hole in the back of the plant so that was a delicate
operation. It was like surgery was going on but Joe, over at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden,
he got a hole in there and tried to scrap out pollen. It wasn’t quite ready. We went
back and now we have in our refrigerator pollen waiting to pollenate this plant. When this
plant opens and again we don’t know for sure but we’re predicting Friday (7/17/15).
This spade, it’s called a spade. It’s not really a petal, it’s mimicking as a
petal, it will unfurl like a beautiful coat or a beautiful cape and this horn will turn
yellow. At the base of the horn, there are all these little female flower parts and all
these male flower parts. Well, they don’t become receptive or ready to be pollenated
at the same time and that’s why the plant can’t fertilize itself unlike some other
plants. Familiar plants that we have can self-fertilize. This has to have another plant’s pollen.
So what we’ll do when it’s opened up on the very first 12 hours that it’s opened,
that’s when it can be pollenated, that’s when the female flowers are ready to receive
pollen. So we’ll come in here with a paint brush and our little jar of pollen and we’ll
paint as many of the little female flowers as we can and then we will cross our fingers
and we’ll pray and (laughter) we will really, really hope that some of that takes. If it
does, then instead of this plant closing up and totaling collapsing, which is what happens
if they don’t get pollenated, the plant doesn’t die, but it goes dormant; instead
of that happening, the spade will fall away, and part of the horn will fall off but the
base will remain and you will start to see little red seeds developing. If we see that,
I mean, I just don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re just going to have a serious
champagne toast (laughter) or smoke a cigar or something because that’s like having
babies and be just amazing to be able to propagate the plant that way.