Hugo Ortega's blog

September 16, 2010 will mark 200 years when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in the town of Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, demanded for the independence of Mexico from Spain.  What followed was a difficult struggle filled with battle and bloodshed in an attempt to remove Spanish control of the land. This effort for independence lasted until September 27, 1821, over a decade of fighting, when Spain officially recognized the Mexican empire as its own country. For more information about Mexican Independence, please visit your Jacinto City Library.

For the past few days Houston has had a very special visitor named Lois. Placed in the wonderful Houston Museum of Natural Science is a large plant that is commonly referred to as the corpse flower. Its scientific name is the amorphophallus titanum. But what makes this specific flower so special? First of all, it is one of the rarest and largest flowers in the entire world. It is indigenous only to the rainforests of Sumatra, an island in western Indonesia. However, the reason why it has attracted over 33,000 visitors to the museum in the past 13 days is because of the smell the flower releases when it blooms. Horticulturists describe the smell as that of a rotting animal. The flower releases this smell to attract certain types of bugs in order for pollination to occur. Only 28 of these types of plants have ever bloomed in the United States and Lois will be the 29^th. It was scheduled to bloom over a week ago but it is acting somewhat shy.