Voodo Lily - Amorphophallus konjac

[Douglas Bolt]

Amorphophallus konjac is one of the many "stinky" plants that often raise interest when they bloom and give off their putrid odor (smells like rotten meat) in order to attract insects for pollination. This specie, A konjac, is not the same specie that gets huge and smell up some of the big botanical gardens (A titanum). This plant is currently 43" tall and is in its stinky phase. I had to hurry the photo setup before my wife started insisting that I take it to the garage before it stunk up the entire house. Fortunately, the odor only lasts about 4 days and then the bloom folds. After the bloom stalk dries up, I plant the tuber outside in a large pot. In early summer, a vegetative stalk emerges from the tuber and makes an interesting foliage plant. In the fall, the leaves fade and I put the tuber in the crawl space until next March.

Capture: Canon 5DM2, 24-105mm @ 32mm, f7.1, ISO 100, two speedlites. PP: PSCS - increased clarity, vibrance and saturation. Added local contrast enhancement, cloned away some shadows, and sharpened. Three lites would have been better and so would have been a tripod and a smaller aperture.

[John Robinson]

Thats different Douglas ! Like the crop on the first one especially. Only seen these in botanical gardens etc. We used to be able to buy them over here but not seen them lately. Nice work.
John

[Douglas Bolt]

I bought my first tuber from a friend for $4. They do multiply. Each of those little nobes you might notice on the tuber will develop into a blooming tuber with 2 or so years of growth. Tubers of A konjac are available on Ebay here. If interested, I'll post a photo of A konjac from last summer with leaves.

[Mitch Haimov]

Interesting, Douglas. Looks like a possessed calla lily. I prefer the first image--better color and light. I see what appears to be a seem across the BG about 1/3 of the way up the first image and BG of the second looks like it needs a little clean up: UR corner and around edges of petal (esp near LR).

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Douglas. What an interesting - and interesting looking plant! Nice "bookmark" comp. I'm sure the image-size restrictions of this forum don't do this one justice - and makes it difficult for us to see some of the details. The white background works well to focus our attention on the plant - though as Mitch points out, the whites could be cleaned up a bit to remove the not-quite-white areas. Otherwise, the image appears to be quite well done.

(For future reference, please note that there should only be one image per post. :S3:)