Greenhouse attracts with stench of rotting flesh

The stench of rotting meat emanates from the UW Greenhouse, as one of the largest plants within the glass building is in full bloom.

Although the corpse plant's undeniable stench attracts the public to see the giant blossom, many other odd and obscure plants can make the greenhouse seem like the setting for a horror film. Plants with rapid movement at the slightest touch, plants resembling alien space ships and giant floating green disks, plants with fangs and hungry mouths, and even a plant to cure small pox can complete the scene.

Amid the high humidity of the glass-walled greenhouse, the carnivorous Nepenthes bicalcarata, better known as the tropical pitcher plant, draws ants by producing sugar. Although the ants protect it from other predatory creatures, the tropical pitcher plant eats them as well, getting nitrogen, protein and nutrients. The plant gets its name from the pitcher-shaped, liquid-filled, appendages it uses to trap and digest insects.

"The nectar contains inebriating chemicals which causes the ants to become clumsy and fall in," said Douglass Ewing, greenhouse manager with the UW Department of Botany. Ewing likened the chemical to alcohol and its effects on humans.

According to The Savage Garden, written by Peter D'Amato, American Indians used pitcher plants as a successful cure for small pox.

Although the smell of digesting ants is not pleasant, it pales by comparison to the corpse flower or devil's tongue, Amorphophallus titanium. According to Ewing, the devil's tongue has the most massive flowers of the 20 species of corpse flower. The devil's tongue at the UW is approximately five-and-a-half feet tall, but the largest ever recorded was more than 10 feet tall.

The corpse flower, named for the rotting-meat smell it produces, uses its stench to attract pollinating flies and beetles.

Ewing said that last year, visiting police officers "said it didn't just smell like rotting meat, but exactly like a corpse. It made me nauseous."

This is the third corpse flower to bloom at the UW, a significant number considering fewer than 25 corpse flowers have ever bloomed in the United States. The first bloom occurred in the summer of 1999, the second in May 2001 and the third this year. Last year's bloom began significantly opening at around 3 p.m., and peaked around 11 p.m., said Paul Beeman, a weekend staff member at the greenhouse. This year's flower began at the same time and Beeman said he believes it will follow the same time frame.

Ewing said it is important to collect pollen from this year's growth to propagate other corpse flowers, since last year's pollen failed to fertilize.

Although the flower itself might have problems reproducing, according to a news release, wild corpse flowers are becoming scarce because of their phallic appearance.

"They are valued by some as aphrodisiacs and cures for impotence." Even the name, Amorphophallus titanium, suggests its penile shape.

Much livelier than the corpse flower is the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica. The plant looks like a fern, but as soon as something touches a leaf, be it human, twig, flame or a breath, it immediately shrivels and closes up, followed soon by the surrounding leaves.

After a while, once the stimulus has passed, the leaves open up again and it looks like a normal, unmoving plant. Although it lives in the limited-access section of the greenhouse, once a week, tours of students, grades K-12, are permitted to see the sensitive plant, Ewing said, adding that "it's definitely a favorite.

"I've heard different theories (on why the leaves move). Maybe it startles herbivores (who would eat it), or maybe it seems wilted and so is not appealing," Ewing said. Indeed, the shriveled plant, though a member of the legume, or bean, family does not look salad-worthy.

In the greenhouse, even plants that do not reek, move or eat can be quite interesting. Consider the giant Amazon water lily. Only two and a half feet across in the greenhouse, in the wild, the lilies grow seven to eight feet across.

In a bowl, or on the plant, passion flowers look like something drawn by a child on another planet. According to Ewing, more than 500 species of passion flowers exist, some pollinated by humming birds, and others by bees. One passing student described passion flowers as "trippy."