Hey everyone -
My Amorphophallus konjac flowered today! I posted some pictures a few replies down.
It has to be one of the weirdest alien-like things I have ever grown. Like a Jack-In -The-Pulpit gone horribly wrong. It doesn't stink too bad...yet.
I was fortunate in winning a bulb at a silent auction at a New England Carnivorous Plant Society meeting last spring. Thanks to Matt Opel of The University of Connecticut for the donation.
Over the summer, it grew into a huge bushlike thing - the stem was 4 inches in diameter and looked like rubbery tan salamander skin with green spots. I had been watering it with compost tea and I think it really liked the brew. In the fall, when I dug up the bulb, it was as big as a basketball. The large bulb has been sitting on my drafting table, not in soil or anything, and about 2 weeks ago started sending up a stalk that seemed to just keep growing. I had to move it to a lower shelf and then the floor because it was bending against the cieling. The height from the top of the bulb to the tip of the flower's long 2 foot purple point is 6 feet 3 inches. The texture of the bottom part of the flower looks like a magnified version of the skin on the back of your hand - it's a purply-pink color.
Here's a link I found with more information.
http://www.augsburg.edu/biology/photoofmonth/amorphophallus.html
The top of my flower is much much darker - almost black, and the wrap is lighter - like badly surnburned skin.
WildBill
My Amorphophallus konjac flowered today! I posted some pictures a few replies down.
It has to be one of the weirdest alien-like things I have ever grown. Like a Jack-In -The-Pulpit gone horribly wrong. It doesn't stink too bad...yet.
I was fortunate in winning a bulb at a silent auction at a New England Carnivorous Plant Society meeting last spring. Thanks to Matt Opel of The University of Connecticut for the donation.
Over the summer, it grew into a huge bushlike thing - the stem was 4 inches in diameter and looked like rubbery tan salamander skin with green spots. I had been watering it with compost tea and I think it really liked the brew. In the fall, when I dug up the bulb, it was as big as a basketball. The large bulb has been sitting on my drafting table, not in soil or anything, and about 2 weeks ago started sending up a stalk that seemed to just keep growing. I had to move it to a lower shelf and then the floor because it was bending against the cieling. The height from the top of the bulb to the tip of the flower's long 2 foot purple point is 6 feet 3 inches. The texture of the bottom part of the flower looks like a magnified version of the skin on the back of your hand - it's a purply-pink color.
Here's a link I found with more information.
http://www.augsburg.edu/biology/photoofmonth/amorphophallus.html
The top of my flower is much much darker - almost black, and the wrap is lighter - like badly surnburned skin.
WildBill