Flowering at the Greenhouse this week: Blandfordia grandiflora, Australia
Last flowering of the season for Stanhopea tigrina, Mexico
And Tigridia (Rigidella) Orthantha, Mexico & Guatemala
FOTGH is planning to host an Open Greenhouse for students, staff, faculty, and the public on Sept. 23 from noon until 5 PM. FOTGH members will act as docents and lead tours through the three rooms of the teaching collection offering information about some of the most interesting plants to be found there.
Other activities to be going on in conjunction with the Open Greenhouse will be a Pineapple Tasting. (Yes, another fruit is ripening as I type.)
And a Venus Flytrap Feeding -like the Lion Feedings that used to be held at the SF Zoo, but a lot safer for all involved!
Traps big enough to nibble a thumb!
Flies are preferred, of course.
These plants will snap at anything!
You are invited to come and enjoy the day of the event, or to contact FOTGH to find out about volunteering to help in the preparations for this event.
(All photos by Nichole Roether)
Martin
Things are looking good for a combined Pineapple and Miracle Fruit tasting this Thursday at the New Greemhouse from 1 to 3 PM. We will have ONE large GH grown pineapple and one store bought for a taste comparison. Then we will have a LMITED number of Miracle Fruit available so you can experience a mysterious transformation of your taste buds causing them to respond to sour foods as if they were sweet for 30 minutes to 2 hours after ingesting. Hope to see you there!
Martin
The SFSU Greenhouse has some delightful plant experiences to share this week. One of our pineapple fruits has ripened to a translucent amber and is releasing a sweet fragrance in the warm room. There are quite a few taste-transforming miracle fruits available that will make sour food items taste sweet for 30 minutes to 2 hours after having eaten one, and the Stanhopea tigrina orchids will open 4 huge, extravagantly fragrant flowers this week, joining a set of insect imitating and insect trapping orchid flowers already open. If anyone would like to work with FOTGH to share these botanical, culinary, and sensual experiences with the public by helping publicize a pineapple tasting, setting up a greeting table, being present to greet visitors at set hours, bringing sour foods to sample before and after a taste of miracle fruit, etc., please contact me (marhoot@yahoo.com) or Mandana (mandana@sfsu.edu) ASAP to make an event happen. With only one, part time, staff person taking care of all the Greenhouse collections, such events can’t happen without You!
Thanks,
Martin
Thanks to SFSU photography student, Dalton Blanco, an aerial time lapse of SFSU’s recent Titan Arum can be viewed at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyw8gdzP9Hg
Enjoy a quick recap of our patient vigil leading up to the brief spectacle of a Titan Arum flowering from a different perspective. It’s probably a good thing we couldn’t capture the scent for you!
Here are some of the pics I took with Nichole Roether’s great camera -Thanks Nichole!
Martin
There’s little chance of that! The Titan’s spadix has now collapsed to one side making him look like an enormous marabou stork standing resolutely on one firm green leg, eyes hidden in a purple ruff. I suspect he may be pouting. Clearly he is undergoing the plant equivalent of moulting, that awkward avian state between feathers, as he sheds the inflorescence and prepares a new leaf. We’ll leave him to that.
There are other rare, odd, and interesting botanical events in the making at the SFSU Greenhouse! Just last week the Stanhopea tigrina orchid (pic Marty Epstein) initiated inflorescences of its own (more on Stanhopea: http://stanhopea.autrevie.com/). In many ways Stanhopea flowering is the inverse of that in Amorphophallus that sends its shoot up like a spire while these amazing orchids send their spikes down through the side or bottom of slatted pots where they dangle enormous spotted blooms. Instead of stinking, the flowers produce a heady, exquisitely sweet fragrance that will fill the entire room on the morning of opening. But as in Amorphophallus, individual blooms are short-lived, overconfident, if you will, that the strength of their scent will command the presence of their pollinators, post-haste. The pollinators happen to be iridescent, often blue-green Euglossid bees (more: http://stanhopea.autrevie.com/Stanhopea_Pollination.html). The male bees go so far as to gather the scent of Stanhopea orchids to use in courtship! Having seen them in the wild, I wish there were some locally that could visit, but they are not that far off, as Stanhopea tigrina grows naturally just over the Texas border in Taumaulipas, Mexico. Because of this, it is exceptionally cold hardy and could be grown outdoors over much of the Bay Area with confidence were it available. I hope to keep you posted on the flowering of our plants so that you will have a chance to sample the scent female Euglossids find irrisisitable!
On another note, The SFSU Greenhouse is in possession of a taste-altering Miracle Fruit tree and usually has the berries available that can change your taste buds (for 30 minutes to 2 hours) so that sour and/or bitter foods taste incredibly sweet. I have organized tastings in the past, inviting people to bring sour foods to sample before and after a bit of Miracle Fruit, but we need someone to organize these events in the future as I am too busy and no students are available to do so. If you’d like to organize, or just help with such an event, please contact me.
Martin
July 5, 2009
The inflorescence had not completely closed by 9 PM Sunday, but the remaining odor was slight. I jumped the gun last post in stating that the male flowers were releasing pollen, but they will be doing so soon. Over the next week the inflorescence will slowly decline, the spadix collapse, and then the entire structure slump over. We will be keeping our overhead camera going through this process as well. Stay tuned for the time lapse footage to come later. There will be a last viewing (wake?) Monday afternoon, July 6, 2-6 PM. Come say goodbye to the Titan. Thanks to Sergei Zavarin for the pic below taken at 10 AM today with the Titan early in it’s closing process.
Martin
Arriving this morning we found that the Titan had begun its closing cycle with male flowers beginning to release their pollen and the scent diminishing. It’s still rank of course and should be a disgusting experience through 2 PM today. By then it most likely will be closed, so it’s now, or perhaps several years from now. Hope you get a chance to see and smell! Many thanks to photographer Justin Ancheta for the pic.
Martin
7/5/09
July fourth the Titan opened its spathe spreading out a magnificent purple mantle -a grand landing platform fit for ten thousand flies… if back home in Sumatra! As it is, San Francisco’s Sunset District seems to have very few, a disappointment to the orb weaver spider overhead. Beginning between 2:15 and 2:30 PM, full opening was reached by 9:30 PM. The stench is overwhelming, asphyxiating, ghastly, yet the structure, elegant and darkly sensuous. I wish I had a picture to post! Please, anyone who stopped by on the 4th, send me one if you can. We have disabled the fans and are keeping the doors closed as the Titan pumps out wave after wave of noxious vapors heavy with putrescine and cadaverine -both toxic in large doses. We will ask people to enter in small groups during today’s viewings (from 10 AM to 1 PM and 2 to 6 PM) with the doors kept closed as much as possible so that all who wish may experience the odor at full intensity.
Martin
Fouth of July 2009
Upon arriving at the Greenhouse, I checked the conformation and scent of our Titan, still closed, but now with a heavier odor: a base of raw cocoa powder, hints of cinnamon, with a bit of dead body thrown in. Between 2:15 and 2:30 PM the spathe began push off and the odor, ever darker, began to pervade the room. We’re not talking warp speed here, but over the next few hours (7?) we expect the spathe to reach full opening. Now is the time to freshen your raffle entries! We will stop taking entries at half opening which should happen during today’s viewing. We will resume the morning session tomorrow, July 5th, from 10 AM to 1 PM when both the inflorescence and the stench will reach their peak. An afternoon viewing will follow from 2 to 6 PM. We will keep this schedule until the inflorescence closes.
Bring your gas mask and make haste to the New GH at SFSU!
Martin
Yes, after washing off a few pestering aphids and making the morning measurement, we had a heart to spathe. It was a rather one sided conversation! I explained that there was no reason to be shy, that visitors were fascinated with him, that it was time to open up and share! He… had nothing to say. Certain visitors have suggested I shouldn’t be saying in front of him that I don’t plan to pollinate. Then there are those jokes I’ve made within earshot about his origins fourteen years ago suggesting he may owe his existence to an Indonesian dalliance on the part of Bill Gates or some another wealthy magnate who needs reminding on the costs of his upkeep. I apologized for everything and begged for a response, a sound, some sign…
Of course the Titan will open in his own good time. Each day there are subtle signs of progress. Today he grew about three quarters of an inch, the spathe fluttered its frill and then tightened down for the night. The odor might now be described as resembling raw cocoa powder with fetid undertones. We will have another viewing on July fourth from 2 to 6 PM. Come have a look, see if you agree with my description of the odor, and take another stab at pinning down the time our Titan will be fully open.
Nearing 4 ft. and not talking
