Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Voodoo Lily is Blooming! Yes, it kind of stinks!

When we came in to water the plants in this small greenhouse this morning, there was the familiar smell of dead mice lingering in the air! It is not that we have dead mice in the greenhouses --gross-but we do occasionally have a blooming Amorphophallus Konjac at this time of year and that is it's tell tale smell! This plant has a great inflorescence (a grouping of flowers) that smells stinky to us but possibly lovely to it's pollinators.

Some of you may remember another stinky plant that we had bloom here at the Conservatory in 2011? Yep! It was the Corpse Flower, Amorphophallus titanum, the cousin of the Voodoo Lily.

Come and see this fun plant in the Conservatory's North Garden.