Arum Titan is the biggest “plant” on the planet. One tall stem and leaf structure - 20 feet tall. One big 6 to 10 foot tall flower that is very stinky. I’ve got the miniature versions in my garden. Very stinky - rotting flesh is the smell. That smell attracts flies who pollinate the plant. It must work as there are always little bundles of red berry-looking seeds at ground level each year. And more stinky plants coming up in various places.
That’s our current largest plant. Before that in the far distant past, preserved in fossils are the Prototaxites. It was almost 30 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. It would look like a tall tree trunk on the horizon. And that was before trees existed.
It was a complex fungal rhizomorph rather than a towering, upright structure. Yet it was distinct from fungi in physiological functions. It is proposed that it was a completely new and extinct lineage, separate from plants, fungi and other eukaryotes. I guess we should just call it a living organism.
Remember last week’s story of the oldest evidence of sewn fabrics lying in a museum for 50 years before being dated. Here’s the similar story for Prototaxite. A fossil specimen collected by Charles Darwin’s friend, Joseph Hooker, was mislaid for 163 years at the British Geological Survey offices in London. That would have collected a lot of dust. Don’t on’t you think they might notice?
There are fantastic renderings - beautiful drawings full of mystery and intrigue of the landscape with Prototaxites present. Here are a few.
This seems more botanically inclincled.
Here’s the Titan Arum in Niagara Falls.
Could this be a Ringling Circus rendition of man during the Prototaxite era?
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