Titan arum

With its huge flowering structure (inflorescence) rising some 3m above the ground and its single immense leaf, titan arum certainly is a giant among plants, as its name suggests.

A blooming giant

The massive inflorescence consists of a bell-shaped spathe, up to 3 m in circumference, with ribbed sides and a frilled edge, around a central spike-like spadix. On the outside, the enveloping spathe is green speckled with cream, but its interior is rich crimson. At its base, the spathe forms a chamber enclosing the flowers which are carried at the lower end of the greyish-yellow spadix. The inflorescence arises from an underground tuber, a swollen stem modified to store food for the plant. This tuber, more or less spherical in shape and weighing 70 kg or more, is the largest such structure known in the plant kingdom.

A giant leaf

After flowering, the inflorescence dies back and in its place a single leaf emerges. Reaching the size of a small tree, up to 6m tall and 5m across, the leaf consists of a sturdy glossy green stalk mottled with cream which divides into three at its apex and bears numerous leaflets. Sugars made in the leaf are transported back to the tuber for storage as starch. Each year, the leaf withers before a new one develops, using the tuber’s energy stores. Eventually, the tuber becomes dormant for up to 4 months before another inflorescence emerges, growing upwards at a rate of some 10 cm per day.

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