ACTION ALERT & RAINFOREST EVENT
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Watch "Corpse Flower" Bloom, Encourage Indonesian Conservation
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http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal
http://www.EnvironmentalSustainability.info/ -- Eco-Portal
July 30, 2002
TAKE ACTION:
* Titan Arum: The Second Blooming - live web cam at:
http://titan.botany.wisc.edu/
- one of the world's largest and most malodorous flowers, is expected
to bloom at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Botany Greenhouse.
The Titan Arum or "corpse flower," noted for a nasty stench given
off by blooms that can have a diameter of as much as four feet, is
exceedingly rare among cultivated plants. Watch it live!
* Encourage Indonesia to Protect the Titan Arum's Habitat at:
http://titan.botany.wisc.edu/formmail.html
- Send a polite email of gratitude to the Indonesian President
for her country's amazing natural beauty, and encourage her to
conserve Indonesia's rainforests
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM #1
Title: Habitat Conservation and the Titan Arum
Indonesia's Rainforests Facing Near Total Destruction
Source: Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
http://www.botany.wisc.edu/
Date: July 30, 2002
By: Glen Barry, Botanical Information Systems Specialist, Dept. of
Botany, UW-Madison
The Titan Arum flower, Amorphophallus titanum, is native to the
equatorial rain forests of Sumatra, Indonesia, where it grows on
fertile, well-drained, hill slopes adjacent to rivers and streams.
The plant is sometimes found in secondary forest and at the edge of
farmland. No one knows how common the titan arum is in the wild,
though most experts suspect it is endangered.
Although Indonesia occupies only 1.3% of the world's land area, it
possesses 10% of the world's flowering plant species, 12% of all
mammal species, 17% of all reptile and amphibian species and 17% of
all bird species. Indonesia's rainforests provide habitats for
species such as the orangutan, Sumatran tiger and Asian elephant; as
well as a home for millions of people.
Tragically, this amazing biodiversity and ecological complexity are
severely threatened. Scientists estimate that the forest habitat of
the Titan Arum is likely to vanish from Sumatra by the year 2005. The
rare plant's existence in the wild is threatened by several factors,
including unrestrained illegal logging, forest over-exploitation and
the disappearance of animals such as the rhinoceros hornbill bird
(Beceros rhinoceros) which help spread its seeds.
Indonesia has now lost 72% of its original rainforest cover and some
two million hectares of rainforests continue to be deforested a year
- an area larger than the state of Connecticut. Illegal logging,
conversion of forest to agricultural land, forest fires and
population growth are causing deforestation on an unprecedented scale
and may cause the nation's forests to disappear by 2010. Massive
illegal logging operations even threaten national parks such as the
Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra, home of the world's largest
natural orangutan population. Indonesia's illegal logging industry is
estimated to be worth around US$5 billion per year. Most of the
timber winds up in China, Europe, and the United States.
Earlier this year, Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri called
for a temporary moratorium on logging in Indonesia in an effort to
halt illegal logging and save what's left of the country's remaining
forests. Please take a moment to share with the President your
thoughts regarding your experience, having viewed the charms of the
Titan Arum, and the importance of conserving Indonesia's rainforests.
Encourage Indonesia to Protect the Titan Arum's Habitat - send a
polite email of gratitude to the Indonesian Prime Minister for her
country's amazing natural beauty, and encourage her to conserve
Indonesia's rainforests
ITEM #2
Title: LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE: ANOTHER RARE FLOWER SET TO BLOOM
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison,
http://www.wisc.edu/
Date: July 23, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07/23/02
CONTACT: Liz Beyler, (608) 263-1986, lbkraak@facstaff.wisc.edu
MADISON - For the second time in a little more than a year, one of
the world's largest and most malodorous flowers will bloom at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The titan arum or "corpse flower," noted for a nasty stench given off
by blooms that can have a diameter of as much as four feet, is
exceedingly rare among cultivated plants.
As of this afternoon, Tuesday, July 23, the plant -- different from
the one that which bloomed on June 7, 2001 -- was 49 inches tall and
growing several inches a day. The flower is expected to open within
the next week or two.
The new nascent bloom at UW-Madison comes on the heels of the bloom
that attracted thousands of curious visitors to the small Botany
Department greenhouse last summer and crashed the university's Web
server as tens of thousands of plant lovers from around the world
tuned in to live Web images of the blossom.
"I couldn't believe it when I saw it," says Mohammad Fayyaz, director
of the UW-Madison Botany Greenhouses and Garden where the second
plant is also in residence. "I talked to it. I said, 'You're a leaf.
You're not going to be a flower. You're a leaf.' But it's a flower!"
Fayyaz missed last year's bloom due to a vacation abroad.
Native to the equatorial rain forests of Sumatra in Indonesia, titan
arum first blossomed under cultivation in England in 1889. Specimens
have flowered several times in captivity since at Kew Gardens in
England, the United States and elsewhere, each time causing a
sensation and attracting thousands of curious people. The excitement
at Kew when the titan flowered a second time was so great that police
had to be called to control the crowd.
The most recent bloom in the United States occurred just last week at
the Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas, California.
The plant grows from a tuber that can weigh as much as 170 pounds.
When in flower, it gives off a stench that serves to attract
pollinators that, in its Sumatran home, are thought to be carrion,
dung beetles and sweat bees.
The blossom lasts only a few days before collapsing under its own
weight. The "flower" is actually a leafy structure called a spathe.
Within, at the base of a fleshy central column called the spadix, are
thousands of tiny male and female flowers. Only when the spathe is
completely unfurled are the flowers mature.
Strictly speaking, it isn't a "true" flower at all, but an
"inflorescence," or collection of flowers, which emerges at the end
of a long dormant period, growing up to four inches a day over a
period of about three weeks. As the pale yellow spike reaches
maturity, the spathe opens out to form a vast, ribbed, frilly-edged
trumpet, greenish on the outside and deep maroon within.
The plant, whose scientific name is Amorphophallus titanum, is a
member of the family Araceae, which also includes calla lilies and
philodendrons. It may bloom only two or three times during a 40-year
life span. In the forests of Sumatra, the single umbrella-type leaf
can reach 15 feet across, on top of a 20-foot stem, while the
underground tuber from which first the leaf, and later the flower,
emerges, can be so heavy that it requires two people to pick it up.
But one of the plant's most unusual features, in addition to its
size, is the extraordinary smell: At the moment when the titan arum's
pollen is receptive, the spadix actually heats up from within and
gives off a powerfully malodorous stench of rotting fish -- perfect
for attracting the carrion beetles and sweat bees that pollinate it.
The greenhouse, located behind Birge Hall on Lathrop Drive, will be
open for public viewing of the titan arum from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily
starting Monday, July 29. Hours will be extended as the bloom time
gets closer.
A live Web cam and Web site also are planned. More information will
be available later this week.
# # #
-- Terry Devitt (608) 262-8282, trdevitt@facstaff.wisc.edu
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