Weird Whiskers & Strange Smells- Black Bat Flower
Hello and welcome back to another week of Rooted! This week on the show we’re digging into a hauntingly beautiful bloom- the black bat flower! This one is equal parts creepy and cool, so I think it will be a fun one.
The black bat flower, also known as Tacca Chantrieri is a rare plant native to malaysia, and is a member of the yam family.
It has a strong preference for moist, rich soils and very hot humid conditions. This unique looking plant is also sometimes called cat whiskers due to the long thin bractles that jut out of the bloom. This flower is absolutely an interesting one, but it’s also kind of hard to describe- it really does look like a bat. With a stem that gets up to about 200 cm long and a flower that gets up to a foot wide, this one is hard to miss. These guys are also very similar to orchids, so I guess picture an orchid, but if it was somehow modeled after the demogorgon from Stranger Things and you get this guy.
While striking, it’s unlikely you’ll see these blooms in bouquets, as while they do have a long blooming period, they don’t survive for more than a few hours once cut from their plant- making them unexpectedly popular as a houseplant for those who want to enjoy their creepy good looks. This is kind of an unhinged choice, as they replicate the horrific stench of corpse flower, though we aren't entirely sure why.
Due to their complicated and honestly labyrinth like structure, pollinators really struggle to find their way out- making it nearly impossible to leave once they enter to collect pollen. But even if they could- these plants are mostly self fertile, and don’t provide much pollen, so pollinators really can’t do much to help. Scientists do speculate that there may be a now-extinct pollinator that fit inot the equation at one point- likely a fly or beetle that fed on decomposition.
Outside of being kept as houseplants, these guys also have a lot to offer in the world of medicine. Traditionally used to treat anything from high blood pressure to hepatitis, this wonderful little weirdo contains a variety of saponins and diarylheptanoids that form the basis for a ton of modern medicines. Most notably they contain Taccalonolides E and A- microtubule stabilizers that act as cytotoxins- helping to fight cancer by targeting and killing those cells while helping to maintain structure and stability. Pretty neat for something that looks like it would attack you in deep space.
While it’s not super likely you’ll come face to face with one of these, if you do I hope you’ll give it a cautious head kiss, channel your inner sigourney weaver, and really give it a good look.
That’s all I’ve got for this week, but I’ll be back soon with another week of tall tales and true histories. See you then!
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922119/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacca_chantrieri
https://insteading.com/blog/the-black-bat-flower/
