NATURAL WONDER

            

On Wednesday I visited the Tropical Glass House of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, to see a rare gigantic tropical flower from Sumatra. Known as a Titan Arum *, because of the size of the flower, it is related to anthurium and calla lilies. Like amaryllis belladonna *, the huge flower appears after the leaves from the previous year have died down.

The petal-like spathe wrapped around the base of the spadix is deeply ridged and green in colour. However, the inside is a rich burgundy which is just becoming visible in the photo above. The Botanic Gardens website announced that the flower began to open at 4.30pm on Friday. There is a Facebook page about this plant. If you click on the following link and scroll down you will come to a slide show with a time-lapse of a flower opening in 2012. Titan Arum *. Even though it is fascinating, this flower seems truly beyond ikebana, and apparently is unpleasantly smelly.

While in the glasshouse, I couldn't resist photographing this large pitcher plant. I am in the next photo just to give a sense of scale.

To continue the theme started last week, over the next couple of weeks I will show some further examples of environmental sculpture using botanical materials. 

Above, I have 'disassembled' agapanthus stems, flowers and seed-heads. I have then interwoven the materials with a large tree root sculpture in my garden.

Here is the material used to a very different effect in a man-made setting, with thanks to Ellie.

Greetings from Christopher
14th March 2015