The Eden Project green team has harvested what it believes to be a record number of seeds from the biggest flower in the world.

The Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum), which flowered in November 2007, has now become the first cultivated plant of its kind in the UK to produce hundreds of seeds.

Eden Horticulturalist Tim Grigg has tended the plant for nine years and is particularly proud of the huge quantity of seeds it has produced. He said: "Nowhere else in the UK has managed to propagate this quantity of seeds from a Titan. It is exciting to see how many more of these Titans we will be able to grow."

The Titan remained on display in the Rainforest Biome for eight months while the fruit head grew bigger and the small berries - resembling plum tomatoes - slowly ripened.

Tim then began the slow process of picking the 440 individual berries, each containing up to two seeds each. He estimates that they will produce anything between 400 to 600 seeds in total, after which the plant will die; leaving its legacy of what he hopes will be a colony of cultivated Titans.

All of the seeds have now been taken to Eden's Watering Lane Nursery, where they will be individually potted in heated beds. The germination process takes one to four weeks.

The Titan Arum, also known as the 'corpse flower' due to its smell of rotting flesh, only blooms infrequently in the wild and even rarer in cultivation. The plant is famous for its primordial beauty and pungent smell which both fascinates and repulses its audience, but it also has great scientific value.

Anthony Moore, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Sussex and a leading authority on the Titan has studied the plant at Eden and gave a series of public talks.

Professor Moore took samples of an enzyme found in the Titan which is very similar to that of the parasites which cause African sleeping sickness. His research could significantly aid the development of drugs for the illness.

Another Titan Arum is due to flower at Eden this summer and will be displayed for public viewing in the Rainforest Biome. Updates will be posted on the Eden website.

Notes to editors:

* Eden Project Limited is owned by the Eden Trust, which is a fully registered UK Charity (No. 1093070). * Eden is home to the two biggest greenhouses in the world - the Rainforest Biome and Mediterranean Biome. * Around 1.2 million visitors come to Eden per year and it has generated £800 million for the local economy. * So far capital funding of £135 million to develop Eden has been raised from a combination of £58 million from the Millennium Commission Lottery Fund, £50 million in regional grants from the South West Regional Development Agency and Objective One European Regional Development Fund, and £27 million in the form of loans, lease finance and Eden's own revenue generation. * Immediate information may be obtained from our website: www.edenproject.com.

For more information, please contact:
Lisa Nolan
Lnolan@edenproject.com
01726 818786

Ben Foster
Communications Assistant
bfoster@edenproject.com
01726 818766
07813 950368