Amorphophallus titanum
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The Titan Arum in Bonn 2003
The bud of the titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) reached a height of 274 cm on Thursday, 22nd May 2003, at 3 pm. At 4 pm, the flower began to open slowly.
The flower, which is the largest in the world, was 274 cm high. This meant that the former world record of the titan arum at Wageningen botanic gardens from about 70 years ago (from 1932) had been broken, having reached only 267 cm. Measured from the bulb, the current inflorescence in Bonn is as tall as 306 cm. It is expected that this event will draw a crowd of over 10,000 visitors. On Thursday, there were already more than 1,800 visitors to the titan arum. In total, there were more than 16,000 visitors.
The flower remained open on Friday, but began to close up early in the evening. The mostly closed giant flower remained attractive until Sunday. At this weekend, the garden was opened continuously from 7 am to 10 pm.
In the two weeks around the flowering, the homepage of the Amorphophallus in Bonn registered over 150,000 hits.
The largest titan arum inflorescences
- 1. Bonn (Germany), May 2003, 274 cm
- 2. Wageningen (The Netherlands), 1932, 267 cm
- 3. Bogor (Indonesia), 261 cm
- 4. Bonn (Germany), 2000, 257,5 cm
- 5. New York (USA), 1937, 256,5 cm
- * Frankfurt (Germany), 1985, circa 250 cm
(* In contrast to the other flowerings, the Frankfurt plant was measured from the tuber upward (2.7m). For comparison with other plants, therefore, about 20 cm have to be deducted.)
Diagrams: Total length and height gain
