voodoo lily – rottenbotany

The Devil's Tongue — *Amorphohallus konjac* at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco

Common Name: Voodoo Lily, Devil’s Tongue

Amorphophallus konjac

Family: Araceae

It’s worth noting that “Voodoo Lily” is a name given to more than one plant, including Sauromatum venosum—which is the Voodoo Lily featured here.

Height: 18-24″ (can sometimes grow larger)

Hardiness: To about 10 degrees Farenheight

Plant in shade in sunnier climates, prefers more sun in foggier or cooler climates. Keep outdoors when blooming if you don’t want your house to smell like a toilet.

The Devil’s Tongue or the Voodoo Lily (Amorphophallus konjac) is lush in appearance but one whiff and you’ll soon know why it has an association with the Devil. Like the Corpse Flower A. konjac is pollinated by carrion beetles and flies, who are attracted to its rotten-flesh-like scent.

How best to describe the smell? Acrid, cloying—like the body of a roadkill animal left in the noonday sun. A touch sulfuric. This is the kind of smell you can’t quite place but you know you have smelled it before. It is the smell of decay. If you haven’t had a lot of experience with corpse sniffing, a more common comparison is the smell of flowers left too long in a vase. That scent, when the water is putrid, is the essence of what a Voodoo Lily smells like.

The konjac grows from a starchy “bulb” (a tuber) which can be harvested for food. It produces a thickening agent that can be used as a vegan substitute for gelatin. It’s frequently used in Lychee fruit cups. In fact, a quick google search will lead you to a number of products that feature konjac. Fiber-rich vitamin supplements are made from the tuber, and thought to promote healthy digestion and weight loss. The tuber is used in soups and stews, and you can even buy konjac flour. However, parts of the plant are known to be poisonous.

Updated July 2023
—Amber Guetebier

dead_horse_arum w fly — I love this photo because it has a fly on it!

Helicodiceros muscivorus

Dead horse Arum or Dead Horse Lily

Family: Araecea

(Synonyms are Helicodiceros crintius and Dracunculus crintitus–I prefer this one of course!)

This Mediterranean island native is, next to the Corpse Plant, the category killer for rotten botanicals. Like it’s odoriferous cousins the Voodoo Lily and the Vampire Lily, The Dead Horse Arum lures flies and carrion beetles to its pollen coated stamen with the alluring smells of rotting meat, or rotting flesh of horses.(And like its cousins Voodoo and Vampire, it is also not really a lily.)

This beauty sports a wide inflorescence, with a somewhat phallic spadix (well, have you met a spadix that isn’t phallic?) which is made up of tiny male and female flowers. What is referred to as the flower is actually a modified leaf (spathe) plus spadix made up of tiny flowers. The spathe is moddled, usually a rich shade of red but can have some green and even white. The spadix is typically black or deep maroon.

The Dead Horse Arum is also one of a rare group of thermogenic plants. It can raise its own temperature, a handy trick to convince those flies that it really is hot, dead, flesh. How rotten is that? The Corpse Plant does this as well.

Incidentally, other plants that are thermogenic include the Elephant Ear philodendron and certain water lilies. Who knew?

Similar to other arums or aroids the Dead Horse Arum goes dormant. It is grown from a corm and likes a nice hummus rich soil, does great in containers, and can even withstand a bit of a temperature drop, as long as its buried snugly in a said hummus-y soil. I expect this would do well in most climates if kept in a container and properly mulched/brought into a hot house for the winter. That being said, I’m spoiled in my Mediterranean San Francisco climate and wonder if any of you inlanders, Southerners, or Northern Europeans have any experience growing this savory rotanical? Let us know !

Tag: voodoo lily

The Voodoo Lily or the Beautiful Tongue of the Devil (A. konjac)

Dead Horse Arum!

Dead Horse Arum Rises from the Earth