In various film and television themes, we often see the figure of the role of "piranha flower". The piranha flower is huge, surrounded by purple-red leaves, and there is a large mouth in the middle, which often emits a strange smell to attract others to approach, and then when others are not paying attention, "wow" a large mouthful of people swallowed the whole person into the stomach.
This kind of piranha, which often plays a terrifying role in film and television dramas, is very pitiful in reality, and it is already in a rare and endangered state in the world.
And its prototype is the giant konjac.
Troll, scientific name Amorphophallus titanum (Becc.) Becc., a konjac of the family Asteraceae, native to the tropical forests of Sumatra in western Indonesia, was listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species in 1997 and was renewed as endangered in 2018.
Although the troll is an herb, it grows very strangely.
The troll has the world's largest inflorescence of unbranched flesh, and the currently known inflorescence can grow to more than 3 meters, which is simply taller than an ordinary bungalow; At the same time, its short, thick inflorescence stalk also has a huge bract that resembles a petal, which is called the "Buddha Flame Bud" in botany, so the giant konjac looks like a giant candle.
When the giant konjac flowers, it will continue to release heat, and the inflorescence will remain at 36 ° C, which is very close to the human body temperature.
Moreover, when the giant konjac blooms, it is accompanied by an odor, containing more than 100 kinds of chemicals, the main components are hydrocarbons and sulfides, and it is easy to associate the smell of dead rat carcasses and garlic at a cursory smell.
Not only that, the smell is also divided into day and night, during the day a sharp smell is very high, a bit similar to the smell of feces, and at night it mainly contains sulfides, in short, the strangeness of the smell can be called "smell version of the biochemical weapon".
Therefore, some people also refer to the giant konjac as "corpse incense konjac", which belongs to the "notorious" existence in the plant world.
In 1878, the Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920) first discovered the giant konjac in Sumatra, and he planted the seeds in Florence Botanical Garden in Italy and Kew Gardens in England.
In 1889, the giant konjac in the British Botanical Garden, Kew Garden, blossomed, which was the first flowering of the giant konjac under artificial cultivation, which caused a sensation in Britain and even the whole of Europe.
Since then, for more than a hundred years, giant konjac has flowered more than 100 times in botanical gardens around the world.
It takes at least 7 years for the giant konjac to flower from seed, germination to flowering, and it does not bloom every year after that, each flowering will consume a huge amount of energy of the giant konjac, generally it will take several years to flower again, and it will only bloom 3 or 4 times in a lifetime.
However, the flowering period of the giant konjac is not very long, usually only 48 hours, so it is very rare to have the opportunity to see it.
On July 19th, in the exhibition greenhouse of the National Botanical Garden (North Garden), the giant konjac blossomed!
Figure | Medium new video
The reason why everyone is so excited is because this is the seventh time that the mainland has flowered since the giant konjac first bloomed in 2011, and each flowering is a rare event in the world botanical garden.
This flowering is the second giant konjac of the recent National Botanical Garden, which will be paired with the first flowering giant konjac on July 6 and the third giant konjac that will soon bloom, forming the grand scene of the world's first artificially cultivated giant konjac group flowering.
At the same time as the giant konjac is on display, the National Botanical Garden will also announce for the first time a video of the giant konjac flowering out of powder, so that everyone can clearly appreciate the giant konjac under the mysterious veil.
After learning about the giant konjac, will everyone want to see the real appearance of the giant konjac?