As usual, exact spellings and grammar from the sniffers are preserved. Redactions are imposed at the will of the editor, so as to avoid identifying individual humans.  Some of the editorial decisions are also designed to discourage further inappropriate behavior on the part of the more boorish sniffers.

Click here for a current view of Perry.  Perry is in leaf right now, but will probably soon begin to go dormant, at which time we will have an interesting project – handling the inevitable crash of the giant leaf.

The Impressions:

Bl-ee-a-ch-h-h-h!  but beautiful!

Dead Mouse

rotting dead mice or roadkill in the sun

I can’t smell it

Dead mouse in my house

Dead Mouse

Fish Souce

worse than a pig barn

Rotten retained bovine placenta

Boy’s Locker Room

Dead Carp

Dead Fish

Dead Raccoon (Bryan – 5 yrs old)

the primate house at the zoo

a college dorm room in May

the lake cabin after opening in spring

our cabin basement after a mouse has died

Dead Mouse

Cant say; is[?] Taste    Garbage

Dead mice

Dead Mouse

Dead Mouse

Dead rats

redacted’s anus (redacted)

fish house with old fish guts

a fish house & feet!  (EWWW!)  Very pungeant

rotten fridge stuff after 3 weeks vacation

Dead carpe

dead fish

dead rat

fish cleaning house

dead fish

dead rotting meat

redacted pig kill

smells like redacted’s fish house!

Dead fish washed up on the beach

Rotten French Toast

rotting Fish + redacted’ cooks line

Rotting Garbage

dead cat

dead possuim

rotting fish (river carp)

Fish market or dead mice

fish

rotten fish

Below are thumbnails linking to some photos taken today (Tuesday…) of Tom Oelfke, Nick Murray, and your faithful blogger of things aroidal.  Please stop by for a look, and perhaps a sniff, during the next few days – Ruby’s inflorescence will not last long.  For those of you who are blessed with serendipitous propensities, your visit might coincide with interaction with one of a number of humans who can let you into the greenhouse to experience Ruby’s highly intense fragrance.  My personal impression is that the fragrance is quite a bit more foul than Perry’s, even though Perry produced a more voluminous plume.

‘Animalic’, within the context of perfumery, refers to odors associated with animals.  Ruby’s fragrance fits the bill.  His/her appearance also fits…that of a deceased animal.  Hey, that’s one way to go if you want to be pollinated by flies or other such creatures…

Ruby & Tom, May 5, 2009

Ruby & Nick, May 5, 2009

Ruby & Brian, May 5, 2009

I have redacted both names of individual humans and comments that I deem to be too redolent of psychopathy, along with those that reek of simplistic sophomoric crudity – but otherwise, the comments are unedited.

Many more comments remain to be posted, which I will do in due course.  For those that I’ve already posted, click here.  For a current webcam view of Perry, click here.  For some further photos of Perry’s Leaf (and associated human scale objects), click here, and for my main Perry photo cache on Flickr, click here.  Click the link to the left for a webcam view of Perry.

I suggest consumption of a few madeleines while reading the remainder of this post.

THE COMMENTS:

seaweed

Rotting Fish + Seaweed

My looker room at school

rotting fish in a locker room

a big mac

POOP

week old cat box

garbage dumpster

I have smelled a body that had been dead for a week.  This is very similar.

100 dead mice

Bucket of dead fish

Garbage in a hot trailer park

rotten dead fish

cat litter box

hot, sick, foul aquarium

like a dead animal covered in maggots

my laundry…

Like Limburger cheese, only fouler

A CORPES!  [note:  “E” was struck out]

An infusion of old hamburger and arpage perfume.
a dead animal in the ditch
like a dead body and dead bugs
NOT AS BAD AS A ROTTING ANIMAL!
A broken refridgerator’s contents
smells like my son’s feet!

1 week old diaper pail

rotten chicken

rotten food

lutefisk

it is awful

pig manury

garbage someone forgot to take out for a few days.

Bad garbage

lutefisk

Not so Bad At All!!!

A Corpse Flower

My freshman roommates laundry pile – GAC ‘82

Our dog after she rolls in a well-rotted critter!

rotting flesh

- moldy basement

ick.

Hamburger – Gone Bad

old milk carton that hasn’t been rinsed before going in trash

Rotting fish – could be worse (strong)

slightly like decomposing animal

- it smelled like our trash can

summer day washed up rotting fish

pile of waste @ the beach

Icky Refidgerator Stuff

a dead animal in summer heat

chicken in the garbage in the summer

a fart

dead body

Ditto! [arrow back to “chicken in the garbage” comment] – Double ditto! [same line]

stinky dirty laundry

me!

Compost pile @ the farm

Inside of a garbage can on a summer day

dead animal

dead mouse

dog flatulence

Dead fish rotting at low tide on the beach

dead fish

Dirty Diapers

Dead Fish

Dead Squirrel

Dead mouse in the basement

Dead fish

Dead Tree Toad under the seat of a car in summer

Smelled like dead fish

rotten meat

road kill!

dead mouse in your camper drawer

it smells like my socks when I play outside for a long time

it’s self

the couch I just threw away

our dog

New York City

Rotting fish

delicious

The Bio 102 Decomposition Lab

dead rotting fish

grandma!

dead fish

The Smell is Beyond Fish -

Dog vomit (trust me, I know…)

- seconded

Dog Poop!

Earlier this summer I received a bolt-from-the-blue e-mail from my former student/student-researcher Dan Eppley. Dan graduated in 1989 and is now a professor in the Religion Department at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania (this illustrates the great versatility of a Chemistry degree from Gustavus…). Dan and his family and some relatives from Minnesota were planning a visit to Gustavus, and they wanted to visit with me…and with Perry. It turned out the Dan’s son, Michael (nine years old) had become a dedicated fan of Perry last spring via the 24/7 streaming webcam that ran during the event (as did many others). I took them all into the greenhouse to see The Leaf. Michael was visibly impressed and apparently quite happy to be there, as are all of Perry’s People when they are in Perry’s presence. Click on the thumbnails below for photos of Michael with The Leaf and with the Perry Mummy (last year’s preserved inflorescence), and for Dan in his professional habitat.

The Return of Alex

Alex, of Perry-scale-object fame, was back for a visit recently, and strong motivations existed for continuation of the tradition. Thus it transpired that our official human scale object from last year (click here for this year’s) readily agreed to strike the pose one more time (click on the thumbnail images below). I’ve also included a Warholesque montage of multiple Alexes (Alexii?) posed with our astounding aroid.  More Alexes in the series (13 in all) can be seen by clicking here.

For a ghostly chapter in the ongoing story of Plant Adventures with Alex, see this photoset.

Patty’s Magical Quilt

In another interesting bolt-from-the-blue e-mail this past spring, I made the electronic acquaintance of Patty Hieb, a docent at the Volunteer Park Conservatory, Seattle’s analog of the Majorie McNeely (aka Como) Conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota, site of last April’s Bob the Titan Arum event. Patty was inquiring about the acquisition of a Perry T-shirt for the designated Titan Docent to wear when their Titan Arum flowers again. I was happy to oblige, so now Perry will be present in spirit during the showing of his/her sibling.

Patty had created a beautiful quilt design based on the Titan Arum, and sent me a great thank-you note bearing the design, as well as a digital version of it. Click on the thumbnail image below to view a larger version of Patty’s design.

Quite a while back (May 22, 2007), I posted a preliminary transcript of written comments by people who were exiting the Perry Room, reeling from Perry’s visual and olfactory glory. I have now transcribed the entire set of comments, and will post them here in installments. This will be the depersonalized, family-friendly version of the comments. That means that comments (1) that identify specific people (in spite of the frequently entertaining nature of those comments); (2) that are, in the judgment of this blogger, too crude for the sensibilities of the blog’s readership; and (3) that show evidence of incipient psychopathy will all be redacted.

Lovers of historical integrity can rest assured, however, that the complete record still exists, despite attempts by some to obliterate parts of it. The document was in other hands for quite a while for transcription, and was severely defaced by a succession of outraged transcribers. I have since re-acquired the original document, and persistent application of my forensic skills with regard to cryptic, sometimes mostly obliterated writing samples, honed by years of analysis of a subset of written answers from exams, paid off. The document now exists in almost all of its original glory. There’s a single exception – that entry appears to have induced a rage beyond human comprehension in one transcriber, who obliterated the entry to an extent where even the application of my titanic skills met with no success in retrieving it. Perhaps the FBI lab at Quantico could help with that one…

Thanks much to Kevin Oberg for suggesting that we have visitors write down their impressions – this has turned out to be a highly interesting historical document.

Onward to Installment #2 (this will repeat some of the items from Installment #1); I have preserved the original spellings, phrasings and other idiosyncratic features provided by the authors of the comments.

Dead Rabbit

Dead mouse

cabbage

some dead critter

washed up fish

garbages @ my house

Dead fish (2 weeks old)

Rotten fish

College View Trash Room

Rotten Sour Kraut

Cabbage

College View Trash Room

It smells like a [redacted]

It smelled like you put a dead rabbit & a bunch of weeds into our dumpster a week ago – & it’s July – yech!!

a dead mouse

fish bowl

a very dirty guppy bowl!

bad
peehew!

Fish sauce

rotten chicken

sauerkraut

rotten meat

not good

Lots of Propane

Road Kill

[redacted]

a really nasty [redacted]

Garlic

something gross!!

Supper!

Natural gas

Sewage

A Large, unwashed man

My Socks after 3 days in the Jungle

[redacted]

a fish pail

[redacted] restroom

giant [redacted]

An Anteater

Dead fish – spawned out

Dirty [redacted]

Sour kraut

Click here to view Perry via webcam. Better yet, click on over to Nobel Hall in person, and request a personal audience with Perry, via one of his/her acolytes.

The leaf of Perry, our largest plant of the Titan Arum / Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) continues to induce rapt attention in humans. A trickle of gawkers streams by, lingering in the hallway like objects slowly shifting in a gurgling brook. (Note: keep in mind that I’m considering submission of an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton competition).

Compare the most recent prior leaf to this one via the photo below (thanks to Nick Murray and Max Leither for acting as scale objects) – the current highly efficient solar antenna is much larger than the last one, and will produce a much larger corm than was present for the premiere Perry inflorescence. There are already signs that the corm is enlarging rapidly – dense root growth into the peat/composted manure top-dressing has occurred, and the mix is pulling away from the sides of the pot, the pot shows signs of stress…all signs that the corm is beginning to push its way upward and out of the pot.

The leaf seems to have now reached its maximum size. The petiole is about 28 inches in circumference at its base, and the leaf is about 12 feet tall. See the photos below, from May 7, to get an idea of the size of the leaf. The final photo is of me, Philip, and his brothers (all of us in the gawker category), taken on June 9 (thanks to Philip’s mother, Jody, for the photo). Click here to view Perry via webcam. Better yet, click on over to Nobel Hall in person, and request a personal audience with Perry, via one of his/her acolytes.

The next inflorescence will be much larger than the one that attracted approximately 7,500 visitors to Gustavus in May 2007.

Stay tuned. :=)

Ruby is our largest plant of Amorphophallus konjac, a generous donation from a visitor to the Perry event last May. The Amorphpohallus Formerly Known as Cousin Konjac has been christened “Ruby” by the students on the greenhouse staff, due to Ruby’s lovely color, and also to provide a feminine name for one of our Amorphophallus plants as a complement to Perry’s name.

Ruby’s inflorescence opened fully today! The overpowering fragrance had components of decaying animal carcasses (especially mice…), feces, urine, barnyard (a subset of the previous two), fish, decaying fish, and a number of other striking but less-easily-defined notes. The inflorescence is large (see the photos that follow) and has the otherworldly beauty of all Amorphophallus inflorescences. If you have a chance, please come to see it soon. Photographs, or even looking at it through the greenhouse window, are in no way sufficient substitutes for a personal, close-up encounter.

Then…there’s Perry to consider. Perry’s petiole grew 10 centimeters over a 24-hour period from yesterday to today; that doesn’t count the upper parts of the leaf, which are also growing. We’re in a current state of awe, and perhaps shock will follow. We plan to begin to feed Perry more on Friday – a mixture of composted manure and peat. A thick tangle of roots at the surface of the potting mix awaits receipt of this manna from Emily.

We had visitors today – in addition to the clusters of watchers that are now forming regularly at the greenhouse window, Philip and his mother and two younger brothers visited late this afternoon. The timing coincided nicely so as to have Nick and Brandy present, as well. We doubtless had, for a short time, the highest concentration of Amorphophiles anywhere in the world (or at least in southern Minnesota…). The other Emily was there earlier, and Alex was there in spirit, adding to the re-creation on a smaller scale of the Perry event.

Click on the thumbnails below for full versions of the photographs. Click here for the Ruby/Perry webcam.

A relative of Perry (who will be classified as a cousin for our purposes) is now blooming. This dark and smelly cousin is Amorphophallus konjac. Cousin Konjac’s inflorescence has now been opening for several days, and her/his spadix has enlarged greatly just during the past couple of days. It will be well worthwhile to stop by the greenhouse during the next few days for a look and a sniff. It appears that this inflorescence will last much longer than Perry’s (which was at its peak for only about 12 hours).

Click on the thumbnails below for photos of Nick with Perry and Cousin Konjac today. In addition, we have trained the webcam on Cousin Konjac for the duration of his/her flowering. Perry will again be the star afterward.

Nick and I took some photos on Sunday afternoon. One comment that Nick made was that the leaf is perhaps becoming even more impressive than the unopened inflorescence last year, and I agree. The massive leaf shoot has a majestic sculptural beauty and overwhelming verticality that should be personally experienced for full visual impact. The leaf shoot looks as though it’s an object sculpted from strange green marble for cryptic reasons by beings from an alien culture. It dominates the room. The photographs and webcam do not do it justice.

I suggest that fans of Perry stop by the greenhouse for a personal visit. You will not be disappointed. If I’m around, I’ll be glad to take you inside the greenhouse for a close-up view. Keep in mind Nick’s thought: the leaf is perhaps becoming even more impressive than the unopened inflorescence. That’s saying a lot.

Click on the thumbnails below for larger versions of Nick and the leaf, along with close-ups of the leaf, keeping in mind that even the larger versions are abysmal substitutes for the real thing.

Click here to view Perry via webcam. Better yet, click on over to Nobel Hall in person, and request a personal audience with Perry, via one of his/her acolytes.

I made a trip to Como on Thursday afternoon (April 10), as did Philip (who was also there on April 9). It was a great experience – Margaret was there to discuss Bob with the crowd, and Philip and I soon became additional impromptu expositors of the intricacies of the provenance, biology, general intellectual appeal, and aesthetic appeal of Bob. I really had not expected, after last year’s experience with Perry, to be doing exactly the same thing with another Corpse Flower a little less than a year later. On the other hand, I happily accept the experience :=).

As mentioned in an earlier post, Bob’s inflorescence was produced from an unusually small corm (25 pounds – think of it as a 25-pound Gladiolus corm, for an unreasonable analogy…), so we were all surprised to see that the shoot was an inflorescence. But…everything went spectacularly well. News coverage of the flowering was extensive, and vast numbers of visitors appeared, despite the truly atrocious “spring” weather that was produced by the area of North America currently known as Minnesota.

In addition to being unusually small, the spathe of Bob’s inflorescence did not open fully (though the color did develop normally), and the spathe did not fully surround the flowers. It’s possible that this was caused by some sort of trauma (mechanical, insect, etc.) to the shoot during dormancy. On the other hand, Bob’s inflorescence had a powerful presence in the room that simply cannot be reproduced by looking at photographs. I advise those readers of this blog who have not yet had a chance to personally view Amorphophallus titanum in flower to make that a lifetime goal.

An educational aspect of the male and female flowers being partly in view was that our descriptions of the pollination mechanism for the visitors were made much more straightforward, since we could point directly at all of the individual parts of the inflorescence during each presentation. In the photos below, the male flowers constitute the yellow band near the base of the spadix, and the clove-shaped protuberances below the male flowers are the female flowers.

Margaret will be collecting pollen from Bob, and the pollen will be stored at Gustavus in a -80 C freezer in the Biology Department. The intent is to share the pollen with other institutions that might want to produce seeds on one of their Amorphophallus titanum plants. We could have pollinated Bob with pollen from Perry (collected last May), but the stress of producing seeds sometimes causes the plant to die (see this video for an analogy from film – skip to 8:00 in the clip, then begin; it’s a bit of a stretch, but is is the analogy that first occurred to me, and it does involve the death of a titanic entity); seed production would be especially hazardous for a small plant like Bob. Pollination might be attempted after Bob goes through a few more leaf cycles and reaches full size (the corm can easily approach 200 pounds in weight). Philip and I plan, however, to use some of the pollen from Bob and Perry to try to make some hybrids with other Amorphophallus species. It will be interesting to see which genetic traits prove to be dominant.

Click on the thumbnails below for photos of the inflorescence and some of the humans associated with the event (note: these photos were taken on Day 2 of flowering, so Bob has started to wilt). Note also the Gustavus Amorphophallus titanum T-shirt from last year’s Perry event, worn by one of said humans.

One final note: we have a rather large specimen of Amorphophallus konjac (aka A. rivieri) coming into flower at Gustavus. It will open very soon and smell very bad. We plan to aim the Perry webcam at it while the A. konjac is in flower. Check the webcam frequently during the next 2-3 days. I plan to write a blog post on the plant soon.

Click here for the Como Conservatory Bob Blog, written by Margaret.

Click here to view Perry (our largest Amorphophallus titanum) via webcam.