Perry peaked around mid-morning to noon today, beginning to move into Phase II (partial contraction of her/his spathe) by mid-afternoon. His/her odor changed from tangy and rotten, with a hint of fecal redolence (my impression) on Saturday night to full-blown large, days-dead mammal early this morning (Sunday). The odor became less intense as the day progressed. We had numerous highly helpful student volunteers, nifty T-shirts for volunteers and organizers (on sale via the Gustavus web site on Monday), impromptu discourses on various Amorphophallus-related topics, short PowerPoint presentations at 30-minute intervals, a guest book, an exit guest book for recording of impressions of Perry’s odor (excerpts to be posted here later) excellent organization on the part of our campus security and physical plant operations, a beautiful day, and approximately 3,000 visitors from 8:00 a.m. until 9:00 pm. Guests left the Perry venue in a generally excellent mood. All in all an outstanding experience.
I’ll link a few photos here. More will follow during the next few days. Today’s photos are of Perry’s interior (showing female flowers at the spadix base) early Sunday morning, Alex and the measuring stick with Perry in Phase II at about 8:30 p.m. (Perry has stopped her/his vertical growth), Brian with true amorphophile and new face on the blog Philip at about 8:15 Sunday morning, and a sign of the times.
live streaming video with audio (the lights are on in the greenhouse tonight)
three webcams (distant, top-down, and close) and Titan Arum web page (the lights are on in the greenhouse tonight)
I thought Perry’s odor (I was there on Sunday morning) was more that of a fermented dumpster, only not as dense. There’s a dumpster bay at Har Mar mall and walking past that, the odor gets in the back of the throat. Perry’s odor didn’t have that complexity and discomfort factor. Frankly, I didn’t think it smelled all that bad. Certainly not a pleasant odor, but considering the spectacular nature of the plant, a minor point. I was especially taken with the elegance of the spathe structure and am pleased that all of my photographs of Perry turned out so well.
I thought that everyone involved was wonderful and I am very pleased to have been able to see this amazing plant. Thanks!
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