Perry has been a strongly-growing girl/boy. He/she has increased in both height and girth. Alex and I have been recording the height for quite some time now, to the nearest centimeter (graph and equation forthcoming on this blog). Meanwhile, the photo linked in this post provides a vivid, if low-precision, impression of the rate of growth of Perry.
See the Titan Arum webcams for a live look at the plant. The image is renewed at five-minute intervals. We now have three cameras linked (distant, top-down, and close-up). The close-up camera will be moved occasionally so as to provide different views.
The number of Gustavus banners in the room has also been growing at an impressive rate! I wonder how a diverse assortment of caps and shirts would look displayed in Perry’s pot?
I looked at the web sites for the US Botanical Garden at the Smithsonian and the University of Wisconsin. Both have daily photos leading up to the blooming of their Amorphophallus titanum. In each case, the scales that protect the bud during early development died and fell away about three days before the flower opened. That might help predict when Perry will open.
Joe
The spathe is really starting to turn purple on the inside! You can’t quite see it on the webcams, but it is most definitely more purple than it was last week.
Great stuff folks,I have been watching the progress on the webcams from Nova Scotia, Canada.
Hort Faculty Nova Scotia Community College, Kingstec Campus
Joe, thanks for your observations. We’ve added them to our armamentarium of predictive tools. Jamie, I’m glad to see that lots of people around the world are interested in the Perry phenomenon.
We’re working on a live streaming Internet video/audio feed like the one that’s running for the UC Davis plant. Keep an eye on the blog and website for updates on that. I’m hoping that it will be up and running this afternoon.
How tall is Perry? My kids want to know!
DeLaine,
As of Wednesday, May 9, at about 10:00 p.m., Perry is 145 cm tall (about 4′ 9″).