Odie the Titan draws crowd to McMillan Greenhouse

Never underestimate the ability of a bizarre plant to bring thousands of visitors to campus. Odie, the Titan Arum, attracted a following during his recent blooming event.

“Odie proved to be quite the star,” said Paula Gross, acting director of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens. “Nearly 2,000 people came to see him, and the overwhelming majority were first-time visitors to the greenhouse. So, it helped us to fulfill our mission of sharing the world of plants with people, and we anticipate that many who visited Odie will return with family and friends to experience our many other botanical specialties like carnivorous plants, orchids and the Asian Garden We had lots of positive comments on Facebook from fans who thought Odie was a great accomplishment for the University.”

Being able to see a Titan Arum, native to the jungles of Sumatra, bloom in captivity is a rare event. However, in the week before Odie opened, a Titan Arum at the Stowe Botanical Garden completed its initial bloom.

Gross said two blossoming Titan Arums in the Carolinas probably created a false impression of how unique it is to experience the corpse flower; Titan Arums are known not only for the size of their blooms but their odious smell that has been described as rotting flesh.

“We know of only six Titans across the United States that have bloomed this summer,” stated Gross. “Having two of those blooming at the same time within 30 miles of each other is a rare and fortunate coincidence. Stowe’s Morphius provided us the opportunity to harvest fresh pollen and attempt pollination of Odie at the peak of receptivity of the female flowers – 11 p.m. on July 17.” Greenhouse horticulturist John Denti braved the intensity of Odie’s pungent odor in order to spread pollen using a paintbrush in the middle of the night.

Now, Gross and the Botanical Gardens staff will wait to see if Odie’s pollination worked, which they should know in the next few days to a week. If successful, Odie will produce fruit that will ripen during the next four to five months. The fruit will yield seeds that can be germinated and cultivated into new Titan Arums, thereby increasing diversity of these threatened plants and disseminating them to other public gardens and universities.

Odie, one of two Titan Arums the Botanical Gardens purchased from California in 2008, is named for Odoardo Beccari who discovered the Titan Arum in 1878. Scientists quickly realized that the largest inflorescence in the world had been discovered, and 137 years later the Titan Arum still holds that record.

UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens staff will be watching the other Titan (yet to be named) for signs of a healthy leaf bud. If all is well with that plant, Charlotte may have the opportunity in one to two years to experience another spectacular bloom, as well as check in on the seedlings of Odie and Morphius, which would be another first for the Carolinas and UNC Charlotte.