Herewith follow the results of Britain's Royal Horticultural Society's competition for world's ugliest plants. The nature and judging of this contest was left to the list-reader's imagination...perhaps Society staff leapt out at unsuspecting visitors with specimen of various flora and rated the horror reaction. Why a horticultural society would choose to call any plant "ugly" is beyond me! For what it's worth, here's the list: 1. Winner (Loser?): Amorphophallus titanium, corpse flower. 2. Pseudocolus fusiformis, stinky squid mushroom. 3. Raoulia eximia, vegetable sheep. 4. Welwitschia mirabilis, tree tumbo. 5. Pachypodium namaquanum, elephant's trunk. 6. Nepenthes, monkey cups. 7. Bowiea volubilis, sea onion. 8. Colletia paradoxa, thorn of the cross. 9. Cyphostemma juttae, bastard cobas. 10.Aristolochia gigantea, birthwort.
I don't get where they're coming from with some of those, starting with the first one (spelled titanum). Is the second one a fungus? Then they shouldn't be calling it a plant.
According to this article only 289 people voted on line! (2nd link) What an odd idea. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardenin...-plants-Green-and-unpleasant-ugly-plants.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardenin...se-flower-voted-the-worlds-ugliest-plant.html
Perhaps it really was "Amorphophallus titanium" they were testing, an artificial plant made of titanium metal would certainly win an ugliest item prize ;-)
Oooh, Michael...now you've alienated all the titanium plant artists in the audience! Just watch. Someone will post with a photo of 1. a plant sculpted from titanium; or 2. a plant with the common name of 'titanium plant'. Not to mention an irritated reply from the International Titanium Fabricators Association. Yeah, and another thing...I unknowingly transcribed THEIR misspelling!!! As one of those tiresome spelling people (a la Lynn Truss: it's genetic, folks; we can't help ourselves) I loathe the fact that I have inflicted a spelling error upon my Forum fellows. What is up with this society, anyhow? It singles out plants which should be admired for their outstanding, unusual characteristics and labels them "UGLY"---on top of this egregiously contradictory behavior, this organization lacks the integrity to proofread! Huh! If I lived within range I might just picket the joint: wave my hand-lettered and CORRECTLY SPELLED sign reading "PLANT ABUSE!", "DON'T BE HATIN'!" or possibly "HONK IF YOU LOVE Amorphophallus titanum"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most of those plants are beautiful and unusual, definately not ugly. And yes, I don't see how a fungi can be labelled as a plant. Nepethes is AWESOME!! Carnivorous plants are incredibly evolved, why would anyone want to be mean to them? :(.
