A phallus-like plant in the Netherlands' oldest botanical garden has flowered for the first time after six years of growth. It was the first time a 6-and-a-half-foot-tall "penis plant" bas bloomed in Europe after over two decades.
Due to its shape, people have called it the "penis plant," but its scientific name is Amorphophallus decus-silvae. This is only the third time this species has bloomed in the continent, according to experts from the University of Leiden's botanical garden Leiden Hortus Botanicus.
Rare Penis Plant Blooms in Hortus Botanicus Leiden
Dutch newspaper NRC reported that garden volunteer Rudmer Postma originally cultivated the phallus-like plant from a leaf clipping and since then has diligently tended to it for many years. Postma told NRC that a part of the plant grows underground as a tuber and another part pokes up through the soil.
The university's press release reported that a bud sprouted from the penis plant for the first time in mid-September, which indicates that it will soon bloom. Then last week, on October 19, it flowered for the first time since it was planted in which its phallus-like structure called the spadix grew to be about 1.6 feet (0.5 meters), while its supporting stem called a spathe measures 6.5 feet (2 meters) long.
It flowered for two days, then the plant experts collected the pollen, which is something that male flowers produce. Postma said that the plant is already six years old and is flowering for the first time. The last time the same species flowered at Hortus was in 1993 and 1997, and only a few botanical gardens have the species in their collection, making it very rare to see them flower.
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What is the Rotting Odor of Penis Plant For?
According to CNN, the penis plant is native to the tropical rainforests of Indonesia. The plant needs a very warm and humid growing environment, which makes it hard to grow in Europe.
Like its relative, the corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanium), Amorphophallus decus-silvae uses its foul odor to draw pollinators into their spathe. Their terrible, pungent odor that smells like rotting flesh helps gardeners to know when it's time for the plant to flower, which happens in two stages.
The first stage is the female bloom phase, in which the spadix heats up and emits the could odor. Garden volunteer and yoga teacher Roos Kocken said in her TikTok video that at first, the plant did not smell very bad yet, but it got intense in the afternoon. The second stage is when the male bloom phase produces pollen that was collected by garden experts.
Greenhouse manager Rogier van Vugt told NRC that garden experts have to store the pollen at -76 degrees Fahrenheit (-60 degrees Celsius) to use them to pollinate other specimens in the future.
US Botanical Garden deputy executive director Susan Pell explains that it is not unusual for larger Amorphophallus plants to have many years between blooms, which emerge from their underground structures called corms.
Live Science reported that Hortus Botanicus Leiden has just one A. decus-silvae plant, but they house other plants in the Amorphophallus genus, which loosely translates to "shapeless" or "misshapen penis."
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