In my greenhouse

In April this year I spent a week on the island of Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean. My fellow travelers were Tony Avent, the inspired and irreverent proprietor of one of the world's finest nurseries (www.plantdelights.com) and Alan Galloway, who is the world's preeminent student of Amorphophallus, the genus that took botanical nomenclature to new heights of anatomically correct etymology (it's Greek for 'mishappen penis'). He has also been known to swoon over other Aroids but I can vouch for the fact that he hates Eryngium.

The ability to make jaws drop and traffic stop is as rare in plants as in human beings. A talent for making grown men dribble is very unusual indeed, in both kingdoms. Either you have it or you don't. In Crete, at altitudes from sea level to well over a thousand metres, from the Rhodopou peninsula in the north-west to the mountains south of Sitia in the east, we saw thousands of plants of Dracunculus vulgaris, erupting like an alien plague from a landscape topiarised by vast, feral herds of goats. Most individuals had not yet flowered but Alan led us to a population in the centre of the island that was in perfect, spectacular bloom. Did I mention that the inflorescence of Dracunculus emits an odor of rotten meat, an adaptation that helps attract the flies that pollinate it? Glorious!

A rare cream-coloured form of Dracunculus vulgaris in central Crete.

Like many 'bulbs' from Mediterranean climates, D. vulgaris emerges into growth in winter or early spring, flowers in late spring and then goes dormant. Just now they are emerging in my greenhouse. Life at its weirdest and most wonderful.

The thrill of the perverse.