American Crow
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Bald Eagle
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Brown Thrasher
Brown-headed Cowbird
Chipping Sparrow
Common Grackle
Cooper’s Hawk (heard calling briefly)
Eastern Bluebird
European Starling (apparently nesting in a wood duck box!)
Field Sparrow
House Finch
House Sparrow
House Wren
Killdeer
Lark Sparrow (heard singing briefly)
Lincoln’s Sparrow (pretty good looks at one of my favorite birds!)
Mallard (nesting? pair on one of the ponds)
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Ring-necked Pheasant (intermittently calling from somewhere)
Song Sparrow
Sora (one bird called briefly from one of the cattail ponds at the north end of the Arb)
Swainson’s Thrush - probably the best looks I’ve ever had at one as it stalked out in the
open along the path not more than 20 feet from us!)
Tree Swallow
Turkey Vulture
Vesper Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow (very brief looks)
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Yellow-rumped Warbler

All for a total of 34 species!!! In an hour and a half!!!

Birdman (Bob Dunlap ‘08)

It is important to remember the value trees hold in our world. Arbor Day reminds us to look around and appreciated trees and nature that surround our homes. They offer so many special gifts to us as inhabitants of the Earth. Thank a tree today, or better yet - plant a new tree today.

“A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit” - Greek Proverb

Wednesday, April 23^rd

11:30 – “Yoga in the Arboretum” – Kari Lipke

12:00 – “The Importance of Play and Chance to Dance” – Michele Rusinko

12:30 – “Negative Effects of Nature Withdrawal” – Bonnie Reimann & Aaron Banks

1:00 – “Local Biking Routes” – Brian Koeneman

Thursday, April 24^th

11:30 – “Expanding the Arboretum – Coneflower Prairie” – Cindy Johnson-Groh

12:00 – “Birding with Bob” – Bob Dunlap

12:30 – “Geology of the St. Peter Area” – Jill Sotendahl

1:00 – “Interpreting the Spring Landscape” – Emily Hoefs

Friday, April 25^th

11:30 – “Tai Chi in the Arboretum Meditation Area” – Gretchen Koehler

(meet in the Natural Meditation Area of the Arboretum)

12:00 – “Natural Labyrinths” – Rachel Larson

12:30 – “Sewing the Seeds of Vocation” – Chris Johnson

1:00 – “Finding Musical Inspiration” – Karl Anderson (bagpipes)

We have native MN tree saplings available to attendees. Plant them in your yard, or give them as a gift to someone special in your life.  We anticipate beautiful weather, wonderful information, and great company.  Join us!

American Crow
American Goldfinch (nearly in full yellow summer plumage!)
American Robin
Black-capped Chickadee
Brown Creeper
Brown Thrasher (at least two within earshot of the Interpretive Center)
Cedar Waxwing
Chipping Sparrow
Common Grackle
European Starling
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Northern Flicker
Red-winged Blackbird
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Song Sparrow

The next birdwalk is scheduled for Tuesday, May 6, at 4:30. Join me, won’t you?

Birdman (Bob Dunlap - ‘08)

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.

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

The photos (by Nick Murray) speak for themselves in their own otherworldly way. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.

Perry’s sibling Bob, at the Marjorie MacNeely (aka Como) Conservatory, is being no slouch at present despite Bob’s relatively small size. Bob is on the verge of fully flowering, and is producing an inflorescence that is of normal size for the initial corm weight (25 pounds, compared to Perry’s 90 pounds before flowering). Bob is from the same batch of seeds from James Symon as Perry, and we donated Bob and another sibling to Como a few years ago. Click here for the blog that Margaret Yeakel-Twum, Keeper of the Titanums, is writing about Bob, and also for a webcam that’s keeping up with Bob’s development. Flowering is predicted to occur at some time this week.

Photos courtesy of Tina Dombrowski of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory.