Geelong braces for putrid stench of death as corpse flower begins to bloom
To spread their pollen, corpse flowers seek not bees but carrion flies and beetles, which typically feed or lay their eggs on rotten flesh. To draw them, the plant engages in mimesis: its smell resembles a dead animal, its flowers are the deep red of congealed blood.
Its scent comes from a suite of volatile molecules, including dimethyl disulfide (garlic), dimethyl trisulfide (rotten flesh), methyl thioacetate (sulfur) and isovaleric acid (cheese or sweat).
Over seven to 10 years, the plant builds an enormous underground root – known as a corm – which looks like a huge sweet potato and can be as heavy as 150 kilograms. Geelong’s corpse flower is young and weighs just 10 kilograms.
This stored energy is then used to produce a huge flower.
The tightly wrapped leaves, or spathe, have opened to reveal hundreds of small flowers at the base of the spadix – the central pillar.
The heat of the spadix drags the scent up from the base and then pushes it out in putrid pulses, attracting any nearby insects to lay their eggs in the rotting “flesh”. The plant can get so hot it starts steaming.
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“The insects are running around, trying to find the best place to lay their eggs, and while they do that they are running around all over the male and female parts of the flowers,” says Geelong gardens co-ordinator Kellee Reissinger.
They will leave disappointed – but covered in the plant’s pollen. If this were Sumatra, they would hopefully encounter another corpse flower to spread it.
Many plants can self-pollinate, sharing pollen between male and female flowers on the same plant.
Not the corpse flower: the female flowers are receptive for 24 hours, then it is the male flowers’ turn. If it does not get pollinated, the whole structure then collapses within a week.
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