Welcome "Husky"!
Amorphophallus titanum (corpse flower)
The Volunteer Park Conservatory was pleased to host a new corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) during the month of August 2006.
Fondly known by Volunteer Park Conservatory staff as “Husky,” this gentle giant started opening the weekend of August 13th and bloomed in a few short days.
Husky came to the Conservatory on loan from the University of Washington. It began as an almond-sized seed collected by James Symon and Willbert Hetterscheid in Sumatra, Indonesia in February 1995, and was planted March 20, 1995. The tuber spit in two after blooming in May 2002, producing Waldo (which bloomed at the Volunteer Park Conservatory in July, 2005) and Husky.
Husky weighed 54 lbs. (24.5 kg) in early August 2006. Pollen from Husky was collected and stored to pollinate future blooms of other A. titanums.
This was the twelfth plant to bloom in the care of Doug Ewing, Greenhouse Manager for the Department of Biology at the University of Washington.
More information about Amorphophallus titanum 
Amorphophallus titanum was discovered in 1878 by Italian botanist and explorer
Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920) in Sumatra at the height of plant hunting during
the Victorian era. The first blooming of this giant in the U.S.
was at the New York Botanical Garden in 1937, where it
caused quite a sensation!
Historically these plants were feared to consume gardeners growing the plant, and was initially imagined that it was pollinated by elephants! In truth, it is harmless, and is pollinated by dung and carrion beetles attracted by its characteristic "rotting flesh" stench.
The plant grows from a large tuber which can reach 150 lbs (68 kg) or more. Said to be the largest “flower” in the world, it is actually an inflorescence, or cluster of flowers. There are 450 - 5000 male florets packed tight to make a 2.5 - 3 inch cream white ring under the spadix covered by a spathe. The spadix can reach over six feet tall. (the tallest ever recorded was over 10 feet.) Each of the 200 female florets is 3/4 inch long and when mature produces the famous stink. The female florets from one plant cannot be pollinated by pollen from the same plant, for females and males mature at different times.
A single huge unbrella-like leaf appears alternately with the flower and is itself quite titanic. In cultivation, it can reach over 12 feet high, and in the wild, its stalk can reach 20 feet tall, and 15 feet across. Within the 40-year life span, the plant may only bloom 2-3 times.
