So a few months ago, I attended a meeting for the International Aroid Society which was held at the Missouri Botanical Gardens here in STL. When I was there, I met the greenhouse manager from the school I go to. I had always seen the greenhouse by the road but hadn't ever gotten a chance to see inside it, so I asked if she would be willing to give me a tour. She agreed and while I was there, there was an Amorphophallus variabilis coming out of dormancy about to bloom. She graciously offered to give it to me (which I was very thankful for!). I've been interested in the Amorphophallus genus for some time now as they're such odd/unique plants. The titanum is the coolest by far, with flowers up to and exeeding 9' in height! Actually UMSL (the school I attend) was the first place to have a titanum bloom since 1939 when they had one bloom in the 90's.....probably UMSL's only claim to fame, but eh...still cool. The greenhouse manager had 3-4 very large titanums (one actually bloomed last year but I missed it!), many bulbifer and a bunch of other various species of that genus.
Sorry for all the background, but without further adieu....here is my Amorphophallus variabilis:
Here's the day I got it and potted it up.
Close-up of the stem.
Blurry close-up of the bloom (sorry, my cam sucks at close shots).
The bloom really didn't get much larger than that last picture, but opened up a little more. And OMG did it smell terrible! I was sleeping one morning when it started stinking....I couldn't figure out what it was for a minute. Smelled like rotting garlic and nasty, wet garbage. Quite heinous and aweful....that's when it got moved outside!
Here's what it looks like now. The leaves came out after it bloomed.
Does anyone else on the site grow any Amorphophallus varieties? Please feel free to share pics/stories, etc.