Droplets Inside of Kathy Upton's Am. titanum Spathe

From: "Scott E. Hyndman" <scothynd at magicnet.net> on 1998.05.05 at 15:00:07(2088) Aroiders, Regarding the spectacular phenological photos Kathy Upton is kindly documenting the flowering of her Amorphophallus titanum with at http://www.mobot.org/IAS/Image/Aroid/Upton/titanum.html, does anyone have any ideas as to the origin and significance of the "glistening droplets" she mentions and illustrates on photos five and seven? Has anyone ever seen this before during the flowering of Am. titanum? Has anyone ever seen this phenomenon during the flowering of other Am. species, as well as during the flowering of species in other aroid genera? Perhaps the droplets are the liquid from which the putrid stench is volatilizing from. Alternatively, in a prior posting announcing her web page, Kathy mentioned that she had increased the relative humidity of the little stinker's flowering room. Could the thermogenesis of the spadix be causing humidity condensation on the spathe? I suppose if the temperatures of the air, the spathe, and the spadix were just right in conjunction with a correspondingly matched relative humidity, condensation could conceivably occur. Kathy, can you still collect some of the fluid so that perhaps it could be analyzed? Also, with regard to spadix thermogenesis, did the spadix heat up during the opening of the inflorescence? Does anyone else have any thoughts on or experiences with the droplets? Regards, Scott +More -- Mr. Scott E. Hyndman Winter Park, Florida USA E-mail: scothynd@magicnet.net

Note: this is a very old post, so no reply function is available.