Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Yet another cultural difference

Confronted with yet another important difference between our cultures.  In America, when something smells bad, we have a script.  We do a little detective work and make sure it isn't us.  Ruling that out, we search our environment, locate the offending object, and dispose of it.  What we don't do, is put it on freaking display.

The Titan Arum.



I can sense you are not impressed.  You are thinking 'That's just sad, Luke.  Botany?  What the hell happened to you over there?  I didn't want a blog on botany.  Now we'll be subjected to four hundred posts about flowering crab trees and the ways in which plants serve as a metaphor for renewal.  I expected something more gritty, like the vomit in the elevator post except with way more vomit and a freight elevator."

I think we can all agree that would be a blog worth reading.  Although I'm not going there, I'm also not into botany.  I'm into zombie botany.

That's right.  The Titan Arum is known as the Corpse Flower because of its aromatic similarity to rotting flesh.



I have to say that the Australians have made this a little more complicated than they need to.  You could imagine limburger cheese, onion, stale beer, smelly feet, garlic, or rotting fish.  Or you could imagine a giant ass.  From what I can gather, that's the fragrance of this flower.  As you can see, it takes ten years for the "corm" to bloom, which means the Australians had ten years to track down these plants and eradicate them.  Instead, they potted it and put it on display.  Which left me wondering whether it was all a reality tv show to show how stupid Americans are.


In that vein, I have a few titles for pilots that AMC might be interested in.

The Budding Dead
Children of the Corm
Dawn of the Stamen
Pride and Prejudice and Giant Ass
Night of the Living Pollen
Resident Evil: Pollination


As we were leaving the display, Amy stopped me.  "Go stand over there next to the carnivorous plant," she said, nudging me.  "It'll make a great picture.  A little closer.  Closer ..."  After observing the plant move a little, I opted for the "safe distance selfie."  I thought Amy looked a little disappointed when I came back.  But maybe that's just paranoia talking.