Member Spotlights
"It's the kind of flower only a biochemist could love."
Feb 23, 2022
The time of year has arrived when a tropical plant carefully
tended by faculty member Todd Carlson has finally come into bloom in
his office for a fleeting time period. The only problem? The full
bloom is enough to drive a person away. It turns out that Carlson's
botanical fascination is a voodoo lily, which has a particularly foul
distinguishing feature: It smells like rotting flesh. No matter to
Carlson, professor of chemistry: "It's the kind of flower only a
biochemist could love."
And the bonus: The plants' unique characteristics also lend
themselves to good discussion in the biochemistry classroom, going
beyond the human biochemistry that tends to dominate most textbooks,
he said. If this odorous phenomenon sounds familiar, you no doubt have
heard news reports where a public space like a botanical garden will
announce that its large corpse flower is blooming and there is a
limited time to witness its characteristic stench. The corpse flower
and voodoo lily are related — Grand Valley also has a voodoo lily in
its greenhouse — and they have the same goal: Emit a scent that smells
like rotting flesh to attract the flies that pollinate the plants.
Chemically, the substances responsible for the odor are cadaverine and
putrescine, which are organic compounds classified as diamines,
Carlson said. Another factor that he said contributes to his
science-based fascination is that it has a remarkably inefficient
alternate respiration system that tends to generate a lot of heat and
even more odor. While a big corpse flower usually goes years in
between blooming because of its size, Carlson's voodoo lilies tend to
bloom every year because they are smaller. But they still can cause a
sensation, albeit a more localized one in the Padnos Hall of Science.
For all of his fascination with the plant, the odor can bring on
a headache for Carlson and he will then relocate it under the hood in
the biochemistry lab. But that won't stop Carlson from growing the
plant in the garden during the summer, digging up the bulb in the fall
and waiting again in the winter for it to bloom. He was first given a
plant while in graduate school, and he pays that forward by giving
away small offshoots of his plants that he keeps on a shelf in his
office. He said he has plenty of takers. "I think the plant is
beautiful," Carlson said. "I suppose it's a scientific
fascination, but life is pretty amazing, and one of the things you
learn as a biochemist is how remarkable the chemistry of all living
things is."
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