When we were young and innocent first-time homeowners, H.L. V. Shinn, the visiting pastor at Trinity UCC church, brought us a most unusual gift, a large bulb about six inches in diameter. He called it the sacred lily of India. 1 have learned since that it is also called Egyptian lily and umbrella lily. The scientific name is Amor- phophallus rivieri.
We planted it in the spring when all danger of frost had pass- ed so that the top was three inches beneath the level of the flower bed. In the summer it grew to a shrublike plant about three feet tall with a flat top. It had to be dug before the first frost in the fall.
The plant then rested for a few months without water in the base- ment. Around February or March, it started to send up a large stem. We brought it up to the living room and put it in a large fancy pot. At this point, its mottled green and burgundy stem grew two or three inches in a day. Soon it developed a tall flower something like a burgundy calla lily. Our plant was now about four feet tall, certainly a conversation piece.
Then it started smelling awful as it unfurled. Someone has described it as the smell of fermented cat urine. At that point we couldn’t keep it in the house, so we took it to the greenhouse at Heidelberg and shut the door. Nature doesn’t waste anything, even a foul smell. Flies pollinate this plant and they are attracted by the odor.
Plant breeders have improved this plant, a giant member of the jack-in-the-pulpit family, but they haven’t been able to remove the smell. Now it is possible to obtain bulbs that are the size of basketballs, and the mature flowering stalk stands six feet tall. It is said to be “the world’s largest flower”.
If you are interested in growing the sacred flower of India, you can have one for $15. Write Plant Delights Nursery, 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, NC 27603, or call (919) 772-4794. They have other interesting plants in their catalogue. The price of the catalogue is 10 stamps or a box of chocolates. No kidding. That’s what it says on the cover.
Do we still have our sacred flower of India? Well, no, one fall several years after we received it, we forgot to dig it up, and a heavy frost killed it. Susan Carty, the botanist at Heidelberg, gave us another interesting plant which uses flies for pollination. It resembles a cactus without spines and grows for many years before it flowers. Stapelia, or carrion flower, is said to smell like old road-kill. A wild plant, now in flower, that is pollinated the same way is wake robin, Trillium erec- tum, or the ill-scented trillium. It has been smelled in Seneca County.
My thoughts return to our beloved parish visitor, H.L. V. Shinn. In addition to the sacred lily of India, he brought us starts of ivy, pachysandra and several King Alfred daffodil bulbs. His sharing was a gentle reminder that he hadn’t seen us in church recently. The ivy and pachysandra are lush and green, and each spring the daffodils remind us of a friend now departed from this earth.
-- Mary