Hand-pollination of the Giant Corpse flower in the Bogor Botanic Gardens

The remarkable inflorescence of Amorphophallus titanum (Becc.) Becc. ex Arcang (the giant corpse flower) has always attracted world-wide attention, especially from people involved in the plant sciences. However, the characteristics of its reproductive biology have challenged efforts to cultivate and domesticate the plant. The species rarely produces fruit/seeds because the male and female flowers do not mature simultaneously. The success of pollination, as indicated by subsequent fruit production, depends on the interaction between insects and the mature male and female flowers from different individual plants. Therefore this study on crosshand pollination to produce seeds is very important to support the ex-situ conservation efforts of this species in collections. Based on observation, flowering of the species occurs at least once every three year. An inflorescence of A. titanum which opened in Bogor Botanic Gardens on 2 February 2012 was pollinated manually using (stored) pollen taken from another plant, which had bloomed on 29 November 2011. The hand cross-pollination was successful and the fruit (infructescence) produced on 22 February 2012 marked the first success for manual pollination of this giant aroid in Indonesia. In this research, the morphology of pollen of A. titanum was carefully observed and its quality of stored seeds was tested.