WORLDS LARGEST FLOWER

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 72, 18 December 1926, Page 5

WORLDS LARGEST FLOWER

BLOOMED AT KEW GARDENS. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew attracted thousands of visitors during August bv reason of the first blooming since 1889 of the “world’s largest flower,” the Amorpliophallus Titani, or Giant Arum of Sumatra The flower belongs to the same family as the cuckoopint and jack-in-tlie-pulpit, known as the Aracea, that is, any plant having the flowers in a fleshy spike or spadix, subtended by a leafy bract or spathe. Thousands of visitors saw it before it wilted. So great was the crowd at Kew that a special cordon of police was required to maintain the queue at the entrance to the conservatory sheltering the plant. The following >s a description, in part, of the Giant Arum, by Gerald Atkinson, one of the authorities at Kew Gardens:— “Strictly speaking, this Giant Arum, which appears to be found only in Sumatra, is not a single flower, but an inflorescence, or number of flowers formed iti a massive spike (spadix) and surrounded bv a large spathe. A man standing upright can barely reach the top of the spadix, and with open firms lie can reach scarcely halfway round the spathe. In its natural surroundings the peduncle (flower stalk) Ineasures ISin. to 2ft long and (he spathe 3 to 4 feet long and 4 to 5 feet across, while the spadix measures 5 to (I feet long and is approximately lit. across at the widest part The specimen at Kew measures sft. 6in. in height. Tubers have been found reach iiig about 7ft in circumference The petiole (leaf stalk) attains a height of about 18ft. with a circumference of 3ft nt its base The mature flower gives "ff an atrocious odour and attracts mnnv Lluclxittlcfi In colour the spadix is nale green with touches of white mid the spathe is green outside ano liver-coloured within. The Kew specimen was received from Sumatra about two years ago as a large tuber.”