Tree Biology

Our earlier post on gigantic corpse lilies blooming in San Francisco and Wisconsin led to the following comment from Darrell Schulte at UW-Madison. Click on the link to see the Big Bucky corpse lily in bloom. Watch for a while - only when you see people in the scene will you appreciate how huge the flower is, and you can listen to people talking about the stink. Thanks, Darrell!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

6/6/05

CONTACT: Brian Rust (608) 263-9484, rust@doit.wisc.edu TITAN TV: LIVE SMELLY PLANT NOW ON A DESKTOP NEAR YOU! MADISON - The University of Wisconsin-Madison's giant stinky flower is now just a click away. As of Monday (June 6), live views of the titan arum known as Big Bucky are available on the Internet. The large flower is expected to transition into malodorous bloom sometime this week, and it may draw large crowds seeking to experience the rare plant. But for those unable to make the trek to the UW-Madison campus and the Birge Hall greenhouse where the plant resides, a live video broadcast can be accessed from the Internet at: http://webstreamer2.doit.wisc.edu/titan_arum/ The play-by-play broadcast, which features the striking plant from three camera angles, including a bird's-eye view, will continue until the blooming event is over. Additional information about the plant, as well as news and viewing hours and opportunities, can be found on the Web at http://www.news.wisc.edu/titanarum2005/. Special features, such as interviews with the plant's caretakers, are planned. Produced by the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology, the titan arum webcast is streaming at two different rates to accommodate the range of broadband users, and downloadable clips and "highlights" and interviews for dial-up users. In 2001, a cruder Web cam protocol was used and generated an enormous volume of interest worldwide. The current broadcast is a live video stream, as opposed to the photo sequences used by Web cams. The titan arum is native to the equatorial rain forests of Indonesia. It is a relatively rare plant and is known for its capacity to generate an overpowering smell of carrion when it blooms. The smell attracts pollinators such as flies, beetles and bees. In captivity, there have been only an estimated 65 blooms since 1889, when the first cultured titan arum blossomed at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England. ### - Terry Devitt, (608) 262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu

An inflorescence is a cluster of flowers on one stem. Botanists have a lot of names for different kinds of inflorescences, like spike, corymb, raceme. These names are hard to keep straight, but they are important for plant identification and understanding reproduction. Dr. Wayne Hughes, at Niches, has the most lucid, simple explanation I have seen of how different inflorescences form. By following the expression of each floral meristem, Wayne focuses on the important distinctions among inflorescence types. Thanks, Wayne for another great article.

The USDA has one of the world's largest collections of Citrus at its National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Citrus and Dates in Riverside, California. The collection is an important ex situ repository for preserving Citrus genotypes (meaning a site outside the natural range of the genus). Citrus originates in Southeast Asia, China and India. Many Citrus populations are threatened by industrial and housing development, so an ex situ germplasm collection is especially important. An interesting article in the ARS Agricultural Research magazine describes the Citrus conservation work of Robert Krueger and his colleagues at Riverside. One problem with the ARS germplasm collection is that recordkeeping was often spotty. Of the 900 accessions in the collection, many were of unknown or poorly documented origin. Using molecular techniques, Krueger found that most of the genetic diversity in the collection was in about 50 trees. This is not surprising because most commercial Citrus is of hybrid origin, so a small number of plants can encompass much of the genetic diversity. This combination of a traditional germplasm collection and molecular analysis to sort out the collection is very powerful in helping conserve the genetic diversity of this important genus. The article is well worth reading.

Fruits of lemon, Citrus limon, in a commercial orchard in Ventura County, California