After a seven-year wait, Cooktown Botanic Gardens curator Nikko Menzel was understandably thrilled to witness the town’s most popular and pungent flower, Big Betty, bloom on 15 January. Photo: Supplied.
After steadily growing in a vegetative state for seven years, Cooktown’s titan arum flower, nicknamed Big Betty, put on an epic performance as she finally blossomed on 15 January.
Community members arrived in droves at the Cooktown Botanic Gardens to see Big Betty, with the so-called “corpse flower” only remaining in bloom for 24-48 hours.
Curator Nikko Menzel said the rare and fascinating plant, which stands over a metre tall, was impressive even to the most experienced botanists.
“I’ve been in botanic gardens and collections management for probably over 15 years now, and it never ceases to amaze me when these flower, they are truly something else,” he said.
“This particular one, we were very fortunate to have donated by the Cairns Botanic Gardens, so we’ve been looking after it here in Cooktown since 2019, and it’s never flowered until today – it’s only ever had vegetative growth.”
He added the titan arum itself, which is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, was incredibly rare to see in Australia.
“It’s an amazing feat in itself, the fact that we’ve got it here in Far North Queensland, in our humble Cooktown, which punches well above its weight,” Mr Menzel said.
“We’ve got this dramatic bloom for our community, and just to see the constant stream of people coming to see her is just fantastic.”
Aside from her impressive size, rare flowering cycle and vibrant colours, Mr Menzel said Big Betty and her family were also famous for their pungent odour when in bloom.
“I thought it was quite impressive for something coming from a flower,” he said.
“The smell is like a rotting odour, almost like a rotting fish, so for those who are keen fishers like myself, it’s not really that bad; it’s almost like something that you get used to smelling when you’re on the boat.
“This smell is what attracts the beetles and the flies that help with pollination.”
Big Betty took her final bow on Friday after an impressive 48-hour flowering cycle, and is now in the process of being prepared for another possible bloom in coming years.
The flower at the top, which can separate itself from the rest of the plant, will be cleaned and inspected for damage before being replanted.
“Next year, the chance of it flowering is very low – there is still a possibility, but the normal cycle from all the data is between seven and 10 years,” Mr Menzel explained.
“We’ll see what happens, but it’s very, very uncommon for one to flower again the following year, but I have seen one flower within two years, so it’s happened before.
“It’s a very unusual plant – she chooses when she wants to flower.”
