Titan arum in Basel: the largest blooming flower in the world – in pictures and video

A long line of young people makes its way towards Spalentor in Basel on Monday evening. But it is not a club celebrating its opening.

It’s a botanical feature that attracts people: a giant flower blooms on Monday in the tropical house of the Botanical Garden in Basel.

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Considered the largest flower in the world, it is native to Sumatra and an attraction in all botanical gardens in the world.

It’s not the imposing size of more than two meters that makes the Titan Arum so special. Flowering lasts only two days, and then the male staff collapses.

So there isn’t a lot of time to pollinate, so not only does the plant generate a lot of heat, but it also gives off an unpleasant smell of carrion, which is said to attract beetles and insects – which can be smelled from the gates of the botanical garden.

Titan Arum is growing very quickly, as seen in this time-lapse video:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7p5sEUchrFs

And the tuber, weighing 47 kilograms, was planted only in April in a heated concrete tub in the new tropical house, and since then it has grown, sometimes by more than 30 centimeters a day.

tropical house

The new tropical house in Basel only opened at the end of May after three years of construction.

The old machine had to be shut down in the fall of 2019 due to major age-related defects. A cloud forest house is also built for tropical mountain plants.

In addition to plants, many exotic birds also live in the warm tropical home, such as the blue imp, a songbird native to Southeast Asia. In addition, the white-headed bulbul, ostrich quail, and adorable birds live in the tropical house along with free-living reptiles such as the front-lobed basilisk and amphibians.

More photos of the new tropical house:

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Great photos of the botanical garden