my favorite yucky flower

One of my favorite weird plants has bloomed for the first time this year. For much of the year Stapelia gigan­tea grows low to the ground, form­ing a dense suc­cu­lent mat about eight inches tall. But in the sum­mer and fall it perks up and pro­duces these amaz­ing flowers.

Stapelia gigantea with my hand for scale

Stapelia gigan­tea with my hand for scale

The pro­por­tion of the size of the flower to the size of the plant almost reminds you of alpine plants, where the flow­ers start to dwarf the plants they grow on. (Pro­por­tion­ally, imag­ine a rose bush four feet tall pro­duc­ing a rose four feet across…)

Stapelia gigantea showing furry petals

Stapelia gigan­tea show­ing furry petals

The flow­ers are a pale cream-to-icy-green color, with dark rose squig­gly lines run­ning all over them. And the flow­ers are cov­ered with fur.

Center of Stapelia gigantea

Cen­ter of Stapelia gigantea

I could stare into the spi­ral vor­tex of lines at the cen­ter of one of these flow­ers for hours…

And did I men­tion that if you stick your nose into the flower the aroma might remind you of ham­burger left in an unplugged refrig­er­a­tor for a cou­ple days? Although the cam­era scared them away, you can imag­ine that flies find this the most irre­sistible flower. It’s no sur­prise that one of its com­mon names is “car­rion flower.”

The genus Stapelia has other stinky flow­ers, though most with the excep­tion of S. gran­di­flora have much smaller flow­ers. A num­ber of closerly related gen­era in the Stapeliae tribe also have stinky but amaz­ingly intri­cate and beau­ti­ful flow­ers. Hoodia gor­donii, the plant that has become pop­u­lar as an appetite sup­pres­sant, also belongs to this same group of plants.

Grow­ing Stapelia gigan­tea is easy–actually, too easy in Hawaii and Aus­tralia, where it’s con­sid­ered a weed. Basi­cally give it bright light (it might not bloom in shade), pro­tect it from freez­ing, and sup­ply it with light to mod­er­ate water. (It tol­er­ates not being watered for two or three weeks, thanks to its suc­cu­lent stems, but it’s hap­pi­est with some mois­ture.) Mine is grow­ing well in a shal­low clay pot about eigh­teen inches in diam­e­ter, in reg­u­lar pot­ting soil.

If you or some­one you know has a young­ster attracted to crawl­ing, scary bugs, turn them on to this plant. They’ll be a gar­dener for life.

September 07 2008 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • | 10 Comments »