titan arum

I went to see the very rare blooming of the titan arum last night at the botanical gardens - they opened late especially. The Titan Arum is the worlds largest and smelliest flower, and is endangered and only found in the jungles of Sumutra. It is referred to as the carcass flower because it smells of rotting flesh - this is to attract insects to it who the spread the pollen. Apparantly the flower grows 10 centimetres a day. The guys at the botanical gardens are so excited because they have managed (after 12 years!) to get two plants flowering at the same time which will allow for cross-fertilisation and make them leaders in the world for rare plant flowerings. How ace. I had a long chat to one of the horticulturalists who explained the life cycle - see the tree looking thing behind it? that's it's first manifestation, then this dies back into a bulb and then the flowers shoots up and then it dies back to the bulb and then the tree shoots up again and so on. Amazing. Afterward i started thinking about what life must be like for it. The idea of being still yet in constant metamorphasis.. every tiny change must be so pronounced and overwhelming. It kind of turns the way we live life on it's head. When i woke up this morning i realised that i must have changed a little bit overnight too meaning everything is new again becuase i am a little bit different. you can see the flower for one more day in the tropical atrium, and i think the other flower blooms in two weeks for three days.