The purpose of flowering is pretty much all about sex - they bloom to attract insects, which carry the pollen to fertilize growing fruits and seeds. In other words, it's a plant’s reproductive process. Most plants blossom once, maybe twice or more a year, but some species take years to produce one flower. Is it worth the wait? There are several exotic plants that take up to a decade to bloom, and here are a few of them.

One you may have heard of is the Corpse Flower - appropriately named considering its putrid smell - but it is to attract dung beetles, flesh flies and other carnivorous insects who typically eat dead flesh. This flowers only once every 7 to 9 years and produces one massive single dark purple bloom measuring 152cm (5ft) or more across on a single stalk, which then only lasts 24-36 hrs. The insects think the flower may be food, fly inside then realise there is nothing to eat, and fly off with pollen on their legs. Once the flower has bloomed and pollination is complete, the flower collapses. Fewer than 1,000 still exist in the wild according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, their population having declined over the past 150 years due to habitat loss.

Kurinji Shrub, or Neelakurinji, is another delayed bloomer, some species bloom only once every 7-12 years, and where it grows in south India, it turns large swathes of the hillsides a bluish purple. Their seeds sprout subsequently and continue the cycle of life before they die eventually, as the plant synchronises its reproductive phase as a survival mechanism, flooding the area with new plants.

The rare Queen of the Andes (Puya raimondii) from the Andes and Peru flowers a remarkable once every 80 to 100 years and puts up a flower spike that reaches up to 9m (30 ft) high! The stalk is actually made up of 30,000 individual smaller flowers and dies after flowering. This plant is on the Red List of threatened species and is categorised as Endangered. One reason for their rarity is that the seeds have a difficult time germinating in their precarious terrain and climate, and there are also few insects to pollinate the seeds. Despite actually producing millions of seeds, very few viable seedlings will result.

Another plant is the Talipot Palm. Very imposing, talipot palms can reach up to 25 metres high and own the largest set of flowers of the plant kingdom, making an expanded halo beyond its leaves, but the blooms that rise above the talipot comes at a steep price - the tropical palm can live up to 75 years, but it flowers just once in that time, and then dies. The sturdy leaves are used for fans or to make thatch roofing.

One species of bamboo, Bambusa tulda normally flowers gregariously for a period of 2 years in a cycle of 15-60 years. There is a belief in several north-eastern states of India that Bamboo flowering is considered a bad omen, especially when accompanied by an increase in rodent population, and is believed to lead to famines and natural calamities.

Agave franzosinii is a member of the Agave family and is one more irregular bloomer, and predictions about their bloom periods are virtually impossible. Sometimes they take decades to bloom, but just prior to blooming they grow very rapidly, sometimes more than four times their average height of six feet. The plants die out after displaying a bloom of small, yellow flowers.

There are others, one I particularly liked the name of – Sheep Eater - a thorny plant from Chile that snares sheep and birds that get too close. The animals die from lack of food and eventually decay at the base of the plant, becoming natural fertiliser. The 10-foot-tall plant can take up to 11 years to bloom.

And why? It’s just that as there are hummingbirds and tortoises with different life spans, so too do some plant families spend their energy differently, and for different reasons. Some species spend a lot of energy living a short life, others conserve energy and live long.

Author

Marilyn writes regularly for The Portugal News, and has lived in the Algarve for some years. A dog-lover, she has lived in Ireland, UK, Bermuda and the Isle of Man. 

Marilyn Sheridan