The blooming of the Amorphophallus titanium, or titan arum, constitutes a grand event for a botanical garden. Originally from the equatorial rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, the plant only flowers three to four times during its lifespan of nearly 40 years but given it can only do so when it has accumulated sufficient energy in its huge underground stem, time between flowering is unpredictable, spanning from a few years to more than a decade.
But then an amazing thing happened… In July, three titan arums bloomed, one right after another, at the China National Botanical Garden in Beijing. Given the extreme rarity of this event as well as the plant’s short flowering period of 24 to 36 hours,
