Titan arums are true giants amongst all flowering plants. So big are they that the circumference of their huge flowers can be over three metres, they also stand an impressive three metres high. If that wasn't enough, their single leaf can grow to the size of a small tree!
Another defining point of this plant is their smell. Likened to rotting meat, is so bad that it led to it receiving the common name of 'corpse flower'. However there is good reason for this as both the 'fragrance' and the flower's meat-colouration is there to attract pollinators - in this case carrion flies and beetles. The common name of corpse flower was given to it by Sir David Attenborough during the filming of the Private Life of Plants series.
The huge flower consists of a bell-shaped spathe, with ribbed sides and a frilled edge which circles around a central spike-like spadix.
On the outside, the enveloping spathe is green speckled with cream, while its interior is rich crimson. At its base, the spathe forms a chamber which encloses the true flowers which are carried at the lower end of the greyish-yellow spadix.
The body of the flower arises from an underground tuber, a swollen stem that had evolved to store
food for the plant.
This tuber is more or less spherical in shape and can weigh in at 70 kg or more! This makes its the largest such structure known in the plant kingdom.
The plant was first discovered in Sumatra in 1878 by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari. He sent seeds to the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew where it first bloomed in 1889.
For more information you can click onto the following link:
http://gardenofeaden.blog- spot.co.uk/2011/06/what-is-big- gest-flower-in-world.html