Archive for May, 2007
Perry & Inorganic Students & 1,10-Phenanthroline
Grading for Spring Semester is now officially over, so I’ll offer some commentary and a composite image. One thing that strongly impressed me during the Perry event was the intense interest shown by the students and other denizens of our campus. Let’s say, for example, that you’re a student taking a final exam in inorganic […]
Some Scenes from Perry’s Youth…and His/Her Future
We estimate that Perry went through 30-40 leaf/dormancy phases before flowering (note: the error bars on that estimate are large). This message connects some photos from fairly recent years (scroll down for thumbnail links to those photos), when Perry was beginning to attain her/his gargantuan character (she/he was simply a potted plant…but a special one…before […]
Perry’s Pigments Persist (as does Alex)
Here’s a photo that I took today (Wednesday) of Alex and Perry. Interpret it as you will. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version. Here are some links for Perry: two webcams and Titan Arum web page
A Corpse Flower for Mom
I find it difficult to resist bringing this link out from the comments to make it a separate post, so I decline resistance. Both the text and the video are…well…just look…please – you won’t be disappointed: http://gurno.com/dru/?q=node/162
Cultivation of Amorphophallus titanum
We’ve had a number of inquiries, both via the blog and via e-mail, as to techniques used for cultivation of Perry and his/her siblings, so I’ll outline what we’ve done here (other institutions have variations on the theme). Cultivation is straightforward – space for the plant(s) is the main consideration. I received A. titanum and […]
What Did Perry Smell Like? A Preview…
We had a logbook for people to use, immediately after leaving the Perry Room, to record their impressions of Perry’s odor (thanks to Kevin Oberg for suggesting that we do that). There are several hundred entries, and all of them are in the process of being entered into a word processing document. We plan to […]
The Dying of the Light…
I looked at the image of Perry from Webcam C a while ago, and was moved by it more than I would have expected – the light from one side and sea of darkness on the other were a bit much. It’s sad to see the collapse of the magnificent inflorescence that produced fascination and […]
Children of the Corm
We collected pollen from Perry today. Thanks to colleagues at the Botanical Garden of Bonn and the Huntington Botanical Garden for advice on this. The pollen will be stored at -80 C in gelatin capsules over powdered milk as a desiccant, awaiting mating with another Titan Arum. The photos linked through the thumbnail images in […]
Perry’s 15 Minutes of Fame, and Her/His Senescence
Perry is now a component of the fabric of human and biospheric history. He/she has recently been featured as the top story on the front page of the Mankato (Minnesota) Free Press, on Minnesota Public Radio, in television news stories on KEYC (Mankato), KAAL (Austin, Minnesota), and NBC (KARE 11 in the Twin Cities – […]
Perry is Still Available to His/Her Public
Interest in visiting Perry has continued, and her/his still-living inflorescence is still highly impressive – quite well-preserved for an incipient corpse, I have to say. If you still want to view Perry, he/she may be observed through the greenhouse windows (which are in the hallway of the Nobel Hall of Science), and visitors are welcome. […]