At 10:20 26/03/03 -0800, you wrote: >Somebody brought an Amorphophallus konjac to the sale room at the NARGS >western winter study weekend last month, and it drove almost everybody out >of the room, which was about the size of a typical living room. I think >they ganged up on him and made him take it home. It was really awful. I >don't know if they all smell that bad, though. > Jane et al, I am not an "Amorph nut", but I have definitely been described as a "nut" a few times <grin>. Re the perfume of the Amorphophallus..... It all depends on which species, and the timing of the flowering. Usually most of these pongs only last for 24 hours or so when the flower has first opened. Dracunuculus vulgaris can be attrocius (I know someone who travelled to a local show with a friend..... and had to hold her Dracunculus in her lap on the front passenger seat...... it had opened that morning and it must have been horrendous. Worse still it stank out the hall and had to be taken outside, so no-one else saw it either after all that trouble <grin>) as can a lot of the Arums, but some of them are not that bad at all, even fruity as I think Steve passed on about the Am. dunnii. I find that personally I can put up with the smell for the short duration of it, but they certainly aren't something I'd plant right outside my front door. Last Spring I had Typhonium brownii flower for the first time ever..... it opens in the evening and was worse than any of my Dracunculus had ever been. It was on the back patio and was moved out to hte back of the backyard. By the next morning you could barely smell it and by lunchtime it was scentless. I think that anyone who takes a freshly opened flower of one of the stinky types to a flower show should be forced to sit in a small room with it for a few hours...... they'll never do it again <big grin>. Cheers. Paul Tyerman Canberra, Australia. USDA equivalent - Zone 8/9 mailto:ptyerman@ozemail.com.au Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Cyclamen, Crocus, Cyrtanthus, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything else that doesn't move!!!!!