Today The Carrion Flower At The Cibodas Botanical Gardens Blooms Perfect, Soars Up To 3 Meters High

JAKARTA - The corpse flower which has the scientific name Amorphophallus titanum Becc blooms perfectly, at the Cibodas Botanical Gardens, Friday 19 April. The formation of this rare flower is also a gift for the celebration of the 172nd anniversary, Cibodas Botanical Gardens.

Researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Destri explained that the corpse flower that blooms today is a collection of Cibodas Botanical Gardens with collection number 76.

"This is the third time the individual plant has flowered after previously flowering in 2016 and 2020," he said, Friday, April 19.

According to monitoring data from the scientific collection management unit of the Cibodas Botanical Gardens, shoots began to be observed on February 16, 2024. This flower blooms perfectly on Friday morning 19 April at 00.56 WIB with a spadik height of 310.5 cm and a spatanya diameter of 161 cm.

Destri said the flower height currently blooms beyond the previous one. The flower height this time is more than 3 meters this is due to the good growth of the vegetation so that it automatically produces a larger tuber," said Destri.

Destri also said that the parent plant in Cibodas is estimated to be between 32-35 years old, therefore plants are classified as perennial herbs.

Until now, the number of collections of corpse flower plants in the Cibodas Botanical Gardens is 10 specimen numbers, consisting of 1 parent specimen of the results of collection in the form of tubers and 9 specimens are the result of the distribution of seeds.

This plant, which belongs to the Araceae family (talas-talasan), is an endemic Indonesian native plant from Sumatra. This plant was first discovered by Dr. Odoardopri in 1878 around the Anai Valley waterfall, West Sumatra. Amorphophallus titanum also has its own uniqueness, namely in addition to having a distinctive aroma such as the smell of carrion, it also has the largest flower in the world or is referred to as the giant inflorescent in the world.

In addition, the flower shape is towering with tuna or spadiks surrounded by flower reverberations (spatha) which when they bloom in red. In addition, this Sumatran endemic plant has a flowering period of four years once a year with 3 growth phases, namely the vegetative (leaved) phase, the genrative (flowered) phase and the bangrman (rest) phase so that it attracts the attention of the community when this plant blooms.

Amorphophallus titanium (Becc.) Becc. is included in the category of endangered species based on the classification of the 2018 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and its existence is protected by Government Regulation Number 7 of 1999.