Leaping Leaf – Perry the Corpse Flower Surges Again Posted on August 3rd, 2011 by Brian O'Brien

The cycle is well under way – Perry the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) is once again growing a titanic leaf.  I wrote about the awakening last month, and the photo in this post introduces a new face on the blog, Tran Tuan, the latest Gustavus student Perry scale object in what is becoming a substantial series.  The initial growth of the last leaf was faithfully photographed by Nick Murray (Gustavus ’10) while I was out of town for a chemistry meeting, and Nick also served well as a scale object for the towering leaf.  The ur-scale-object is, of course, Alex Burum (Gustavus ’07).  Others who have served in this capacity, both with and without measuring sticks, are to be found in various spots in the blog and/or on Flickr, and are destined to be featured again in a collective (and perhaps Warholesque) blog post.  Dan, Anthony, Emily, Molly, Philip, Max…

With regard to that repotting plan that I mentioned in the last post – well, Bob Dunlap (greenhouse manager) and I had planned to do that in early July.  We started digging into the pot, and found massive, ropy roots already growing.  Since the corm is probably much smaller now, having produced seeds, we decided that it would be best to leave Perry in her/his pot, rather than disturb the root system.  It’s too bad that we didn’t get to weigh the corm, but root growth was so vigorous that we thought that unpotting Perry would cause a lot of damage.  Attention will have to be paid to fertilization, but the pot seems to fit the newly-reduced corm – I stuck my hand down the side of the pot, and found space.

On a related topic, Perry’s Progeny (seedlings!) are doing well indeed.  Click here for an update.