CHARLOTTE – June 19, 2007 – The Titan arum, the world’s largest flowering plant that is exceptionally rare and known for its pungent stench, is predicted to bloom very soon at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s McMillan Greenhouse.

When the gigantic plant finally blooms, which is predicted to occur around July 1, UNC Charlotte will join an elite list of only 20 institutions in North America with bragging rights to cultivating an Amorphophallus titanum bloom in captivity. It’s a first time event for the Carolinas. Click here for updates and photos.

"UNC Charlotte purchased the specimen from a grower four years ago," said Botanical Garden Director, Larry Mellichamp. "Last year, it grew a leaf that was 10 feet high and eight feet wide."

At that time, Mellichamp didn’t expect anything big to come of it. But things quickly changed.

"It was dormant for six months and then 4 weeks ago, a bud emerged,"he said. "It's a pretty young plant to be blooming now. Our titan is only six years old."

Discovered in Sumatra by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari in 1878, the Titan arum only grows wild in the Indonesian rainforests. The plant rarely flowers in the jungle and even more rarely when cultivated.

One bloomed for the first time in the United States at the New York Botanical Gardens in 1937 and instantly became a national sensation.

The flowering stalk, which can reach nearly nine feet and open to a diameter of three to four feet, opens for only a few days. Thousands of flowers are hidden inside of the central column, called the spadix.

Notable not only for its size, once bloomed, the plant smells particularly repulsive and can be detected from half a mile away – hence the name, "corpse flower."

In the rainforest, the Titan arum has been known to grow as high as 20 feet with an umbrella leaf spanning 15 feet across. The tuber that supports it can weigh as much as 100 pounds. In captivity, the plants are smaller, but that is a relative term. The record for a cultivated Titan Arum is 8 feet 5 inches.

University officials are making preparations for on onslaught of visitors who will want to catch a glimpse of the towering plant. It won’t be hard to find because the aroma it puts out has been compared to the smell of rotting flesh, according to Mellichamp.

About UNC Charlotte
A public research university, UNC Charlotte is the fourth-largest of the 16-constituent University of North Carolina system. It is the largest institution of higher education in the Charlotte region. The university comprises seven professional colleges and currently offers 18 doctoral programs, 60 master’s degree programs and 89 programs leading to bachelor’s degrees. Enrollment exceeds 21,500 students, including more than 4,400 graduate students.

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Media contact: Buffie Stephens, 704.687.2262, dbsteph1@uncc.edu