After more than a week of showing signs that it was ready to bloom, the corpse flower at the Chicago Botanic Garden turned shy and did not open. Fondly nicknamed Spike by garden staff, it disappointed many people who waited a long time to see the rare plant in bloom, reported the Chicago Tribune.
Scientists at the garden decided to coax Spike to open its leaves Sunday and give it a bit of assistance by cutting its outer layers from the base while a curious crowd watched.
"It's disappointing that it didn't open because it's really quite splendid. They're amazing plants. Their flowers are amazing and their odor is amazing," Patrick Herendeen, conservation scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden, told the Chicago Tribune. "However, this is not unprecedented. It just didn't perform as expected. But that's just like our garden plants at home."
Herendeen explained that Spike's failure to open on its own does not mean it is sick. It also does not mean that the corpse flower will never be able to open on its own for the duration of its existence. One day, "Spike will bloom again," he said.
The corpse flower, or the titan arum, is a very rare plant. Scientifically named Amorphophallus titanum, the corpse flower is native to Sumatra. It is believed that one titan arum exists for every 40 hectares in the wild. It does not always bloom, but when it does, it emits a pungent odor that smells like decaying meat to attract pollinators like flies.
"In the wild, they're trying to attract dung beetles, flesh flies, insects that would actually be attracted to a dead animal," floriculturist Tim Pollak, who has taken care of Spike since it was a seed, told CBS News. "And then the coloration of the flower is also to make it look like meat, too. All of those things are luring, or tricking, those insects for pollination."
The corpse flower being rare, and a blooming one even more so, was perhaps the reason why Spike earned some kind of celebrity status at the Chicago Botanic Garden, getting its own 24/7 livestream broadcast that was supposed to capture the opening of its leaves, according to CBS News. But now that Spike failed to deliver, people are asking why it did not bloom.
Apparently, Spike did not have enough energy to complete the maturing process, explained scientists at the Chicago Botanic Garden. When Pollak and conservation scientist Shannon Still looked inside Spike's leaves, they did not find pollen, which is proof that the flower is not fully developed. This is what led them to remove the flower's outer layers.
Chicago Botanic Garden scientists will continue to observe for pollen development and will explore possible reasons why Spike did not mature completely.
There are eight other titan arums in the Chicago Botanic Garden.
