Archive for Brian O'Brien
Faculty member in the Department of Chemistry; plant nut.
Perry’s Stony Sleep
Perry the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) has decided to bypass making seeds this time, and has gone dormant. The dead but still-standing inflorescence had toppled as of Monday this week, and today Nate and I pulled out and mounted the new Perry mummy to dry. We suspended it on a ring stand for the still-wet […]
Perry’s Spadix Collapses
Perry the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) has been collapsing in various ways since her/his brief but glorious apotheosis last week on the afternoon and evening of Halloween. Early this afternoon, Perry’s wilting spadix gave way and collapsed, leading to the now familiar elephantine appearance of Perry during this […]
Children of the Corm
Perry the Corpse Flower is a mom and dad! Here’s a partial explanation of the title of this post. Perry the Corpse Flower’s underground part is called a corm. It is a solid structure that’s similar to a potato, but it has only one eye. The corm weighed […]
Perry is Blooming!
This will be just a quick post. The photo below is of Perry, Serenity Mahoney (Gustavus ’15), and Bryan Voigt (Gustavus ’15), taken at 10:08 this morning. Perry had begun to open earlier in the morning, and is now nearly fully open (3:35). More photos to follow in another post.
Perry Powerhouse
Perry the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) has grown massively since my last post, and is nearing anthesis. I and various Perryophiles, including a growing number of students, have been documenting this reach for the sky. See captions on each of the photos for details of the surge. Click here for three live streaming Perry webcams. […]
Perry’s Spadix Emerges
The rapid growth of Perry the Corpse Flower’s inflorescence continues to transfix all who are viewing it. The students (Nate Friedley ’15, Serenity Mahoney ’15, Nick Ulen ’15, and alumnus Tuan Tran ’13) and I had photo shoots with Perry this past Wednesday (October 16) and Friday (October 18). The Friday session was coupled with […]
Perry’s Sleepy Interlude
Perry the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) went to sleep in July, only to re-awaken in September. That two-month snooze was the shortest so far. Perry’s first post-leaf sleep lasted nearly nine months; the second one was four months (and I was shocked at how short that one was…). The pictures in this post depict Perry […]
Perry Smiles, Anthesis is Near
It’s now official – Perry the Corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) will bloom soon! We were able to detect a bit of spathe by peeking into Perry’s shoot during the photo session this past Friday (October 11). Over the weekend, Perry smiled in all his/her glory, and this morning (Monday) at about 10:00 we had a […]
Perry’s Smile Brews
Perry the Corpse Flower’s shoot continues to grow rapidly in both height and girth. We took some pictures today (October 11) of Perry with now-standard Perryophiles Nate Friedley (Gustavus ’15), Serenity Mahoney (Gustavus ’15), and Nick Ulen (Gustavus ’15), shown left-to-right in the photo. For direct comparison, I’ve included a photo from last week’s blog […]
Perry is Popping
Perry the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) is growing like Jack’s Beanstalk! The new shoot appeared about two weeks into September (see the photo from September 13, scaled to Tuan’s hand), and it was, as of Friday, October 4, approaching 20 inches / 50 centimeters in height! I won’t make a declaration as to the nature […]