Archive for Brian O'BrienPage 5
The Perry Blossom Special
The Perry Train has long since left the station, and is now barreling along at full speed. Perry’s inflorescence continues to grow at a rate of centimeters per day, and an organization has been created to coordinate activities. Once the “It’s opening!” button is pushed, the well-oiled machine that is the Perry Lollapalooza Plan […]
Titan Arum Eruption – The Spadix Emerges
Perry the Corpse Flower (aka Titan Arum, aka Amorphophallus titanum) continues his/her volcanic skyward surge. In the initial stage of the titanic vegetable eruption, the spathe (the leafy, outer part of the inflorescence), in a grinning, somewhat Elvis-like manner, revealed her/himself to human eyes on July 4, 2010. Fireworks were set off (probably not in […]
Perry the Titan Arum to Bloom Soon!
This afternoon, July 4, 2010, the spathe of Perry’s inflorescence was revealed. The lettuce-like appearance shows that this will be an inflorescence. The first sight of the spathe on Perry the last time was on the evening of April 26, 2007, and the inflorescence began to open on the afternoon of May 12. It was […]
Titan Surge!
Perry the Titan Arum (aka Corpse Flower) continues to grow rapidly. The shoot that is now arising has a suspicious rotundity – the shape indicates that it could well be an inflorescence (or perhaps the reincarnation of John Adams). If it’s an inflorescence, I estimate that Perry will flower toward the end of July or […]
The Titan Awakens!
It’s been a long time since my last update on Perry, but he/she has been either stolidly photosynthesizing, dozing off, or sleeping for quite a while during the past couple of years. No more! Perry recently awakened from only four months of stony sleep (I had expected at least nine months…). This is startling, and […]
Perry’s Putrid Plume Prods Primeval Sense
Here’s the latest roll-out of the serial tabulation of public impressions of Perry‘s complex, magnificent fragrance (#4 in the series). For the previous installment, click here. Note the change in perceptions over time. I thought that the fragrance changed significantly over the couple of days that Perry was in flower (though she/he was only in […]
An Animalically Fragrant Ruby Tuesday
For all of you Perry the Corpse Flower fans out there, Perry’s smaller cousin, Ruby, is now putting on a spectacular display, both visual and olfactory, in the Gustavus greenhouse (click here and here for posts on Ruby and her/his fans from last spring, along with graphic descriptions of his/her vile/sublime fragrance). Below are thumbnails […]
Remembrance of Corpse Flowers Past
This blog post will immortalize, to the extent that the Tubes of the Internet are Immortal, some of the comments left by visitors to Perry the Corpse Flower. Her/his sibling Bob, who flowered at the Marjorie McNeely (aka Como) Conservatory last spring produced similar impressions – those are stored in the memories of thousands of […]
A Perry Potpourri
Michael & Company Visit Perry Earlier this summer I received a bolt-from-the-blue e-mail from my former student/student-researcher Dan Eppley. Dan graduated in 1989 and is now a professor in the Religion Department at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania (this illustrates the great versatility of a Chemistry degree from Gustavus…). Dan and his family and some […]
What Did Perry Smell Like? Installment #2
For those readers who might initially have thought otherwise, this post deals with Perry, our largest plant of the Titan Arum / Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum), not with a human of that name. Quite a while back (May 22, 2007), I posted a preliminary transcript of written comments by people who were exiting the Perry […]