PRINCEVILLE — Friday afternoon, Janmarie Jouflas was driving out of the Princeville Botanical Gardens on an errand when she noticed “something different” about what is known as a corpse flower.
It was blooming.
So she threw her car into reverse and headed back to the visitor center to start documenting the process.
“This plant comes from Sumeria,” she said Saturday afternoon after the plant had reached full bloom. “It’s very rare. The first recorded Amorphophallus titanium to flower in cultivation was in 1889. Since then, only 574 titaniums have flowered in cultivation worldwide.
“Since they’re rare, people have gone out and found them in the wild and taken them, trying to cultivate because they’re worth a lot of money,” said Jouflas, general manager of Princeville Botanical Gardens. “So there aren’t as many in the wild now.”
Emulating death in order to pollinate and reproduce, the species Amorphophallus titanium, commonly known as the corpse flower, is a rare and pungent plant.
They take seven to 10 years to blossom, some only bloom once every few dozen years, they only bloom for 24 to 48 hours, and their scent is akin to decaying meat. Blossoms made their mark on the Guinness World Records in June 2010 with a flower measuring 10 feet 2 inches in height.
The reason for their rotten scent is to attract their pollinators: carnivorous insects like flies and certain types of beetles.
And for the next 24 hours or so, Princeville Botanical Garden’s first corpse flower blossom is on display near their visitor center.
“We don’t open on the weekends, but we’re going to be open today for awhile and then Sunday so people can come and see this,” Jouflas said Saturday.
The gardens will be open from noon to 2 p.m. today for visitors to come and see the corpse flower. Donations will be accepted, but there is no fee. Call ahead, because the parking lot is small and they have to coordinate arrivals.
Saturday morning the flower, which hasn’t been accurately measured yet but is about three feet in height, was in full bloom, though wasn’t emitting a strong scent. Light rain fell just outside the canopy where it’s sitting, but as Jouflas told the story of its blossoming, a rotten smell started floating through the air.
Neighbor Shirin Hunt was on the property to check out the flower, and wrinkled her nose at the smell.
“It’s horrible, but you have to try smelling it,” she said. “Just like something rotten.”
“We’ve had it seven years. It’s always grown up with these leaves that sort of come out of the top part, very much like an umbrella, and then it collapses in onto itself until there’s nothing left. Then it comes back again,” Jouflas said.
They noticed, about 30 days ago, that there was something different about this year. Instead of a stem, the plant was starting to form a flower.
Cultivation of the plants has grown to the point that there are corpse flower seeds for sale, Jouflas said.
This particular plant was raised from seed at Princeville Botanical Gardens, planted by master gardener Michael Wise. Wise was known around the gardens as the “Plant Whisperer,” and was responsible for maintaining the more than 700 plant types in the nine-acre garden. He died in April.
Staff at the Princeville Botanical Gardens surrounded the rare flower with others in Wise’s prized collection, and have let it serve as a memorial to the man who was dedicated to the gardens.
Now faced with the idea of propagation, Jouflas has been contacting every known garden that has a corpse flower, hoping to pair it up with some pollen. And other staff with the garden are looking at ways of collecting pollen out of this flower.
To go check out the corpse flower at Princeville Botanical Gardens, call Janmarie at 634-5505 and visit kauaibotanicalgardens.com for directions and more information.
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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
