Enigmatic Pongapong

Dr Abe V Rotor

Solitary giant blossom of pongapong or Elephant-Foot

Yam (Amorphophallus campanulatus), Also known as 
tigi or tigue (Ilk), anto or oroi (Bis), puñgapung (Tag),tokod-banua (Pam). It belongs to the Gabi Family - Araceae

Pongapong in its vegetative stage at CELL (Center
for Ecozoic Learning and Livelihood in Silang,
Cavite, 2006. Shown in this photo is a single stalk,
the leaves are serrated and are borne on branched
petiole reaching up to 10 feet.

What a life you have, my pongapong fair:
At one time you are all but a huge flower,
Emerging in royal velvet with deathly air;
Yet in monsoon, you are reborn a tower,
Breaking out while Hades is in slumber.

Fantastic stories about this bizarre plant were related by European explorers returning from Southeast Asia. These stories were so exaggerated they resembled fiction than hard science.

The local pongapong is a perennial herb with very large underground corm 30 centimeters or more in diameter, weighing about 25 kilograms. Its corm sends out a single, very large leaf on a tall purple-mottled stalk.

A multicolored flower head, as shown in the photograph, is thick, bell-shaped, and ruffled cape. Inside is a globular, cone-shaped flower stalk that is spongy, slightly wrinkled, and purple, on which hundreds of minute flowers are attached. Male flowers are situated above female flowers.

Flies and carrion beetles are attracted by the stench, and in effect carry out pollination and subsequent fertilization.

After fertilization, in place of the female flowers, the stalk will bear numerous small fruits, green at first then turning yellow to red when ripe. Researchers have noticed that the stalk elongates slightly, presumably to display the ripe, juicy berries to birds that will eat them and disperse their seeds over great distances.

The flowers and leaves are not found in the same plant at the same time, but the mature corms produce them alternately.

In times of food scarcity, the young petiole are peeled and boiled as vegetables. Cooking must be thorough to destroy the stinging crystals. The local practice The petioles and corm are used for hog feed. They are cut into pieces and thoroughly boiled. The corm however, may be sliced and dried, pulverized and boiled. The food value of pongapong is close to that of squash, and better than sinkamas.

The corms are caustic and are employed in antirheumatic poultice. Experiments on mice showed analgesic effect of methanol extract from the corm.

When walking through a thicket or forest in summer, and you smell putried meat, it is likely that a pongapong in bloom is somewhere in the area.

NOTE: Surprisingly a living specimen was discovered by Dr. Anselmo S Cabigan in the former EcoSanctuary of SPUQC. (See photo). The plant suddenly disappeared for unknown reasons.