Amazing sightings 2: Amorphophallus

This is the botanical equivalent of a clouded leopard. A tree, about 3.5m tall, which is in fact a flower! Blooming only every I don’t know how long. The “trunk” about 15cm in diameter, and yet you can bend it inside with one hand, and it is completely hollow. And the leaves, that have “webbings” that continue along the “branches”. An extremely awkward plant, and very different to the Amorphophalli(?) that I knew from books. And I should mention here the great Odoardo Beccari, Italian pioneer botanist, who explored Borneo when British and Dutch were the only colonial powers active in the area, and discovered innumerable plants (among which Amorphophallus), all alone, apparently going often barefoot (strange chap, probably..). And great man, in his will he asked never to bring seeds of Amorphophallus away. Of course, to appropriately celebrate him, few years ago Florence Botanical Garden acquired a large number of them.