David Attenborough Uncovers Nature's Record-Breaking Plant! | Nature Bites

One of the most famous species has been something of a mystery until only a few years ago. It may look like a tree but in reality this is just a single giant leaf. It's called the Titan Arum and it's a record breaker. But not because of what you see now. In a week or so that green stem and the leaflets that grow on top will die and rot and disappear. But beneath the surface of the soil there is a gigantic tuber and it's from that that the record breaker will emerge. This extraordinary event occurs just once every seven years. It will take two months to complete. But this new growth is neither a trunk nor a leaf. It's the bud of the biggest flower in the world. As it grows day after day a huge spire, the spadix, rises from the centre of the developing flower. Then one evening as darkness falls over the forest the giant flower opens. This surely is one of the most astonishing of blooms. I first saw one of these amazing flowers growing in the wild in the tropical rainforest of Sumatra. But why are they so big? Well the function of the flower, like all flowers, is to attract a pollinator and this plant gives off the smell of rotting flesh. But it does something else. Something you can see with a heat sensitive camera. This remarkable device reveals something astonishing. The white areas at the base of the spire are significantly hotter than the surrounding plant. It's heating up. At its hottest the spire can reach 37 degrees centigrade, the same temperature as the body of a mammal. And as it warms something else happens inside the flower at the base of the spire. Hundreds of smaller structures begin to produce stringy pollen. The titanarum is readying itself for the arrival of pollinating insects. Tiny sweat bees and probably carrion beetles as well are attracted by a combination of the powerful smell and the heat.