Don’t Dump On The Bronx!

The one-time official flower of the Bronx blooms in Brooklyn:

A bizarre, stomach-churning and, for some, unprecedented display is not the scene of a sensational crime, but far from it. The long, hot room at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, usually occupied by a stately bonsai museum, has been cleaned out for the macabre main event, a rare blooming of the Amorphophallus titanum.

The species last bloomed in New York in 1939 in the Bronx. The botanic garden has kept one behind closed doors for 10 years, until now, as the plant completes a remarkable growth spurt of seven inches a day and prepares to flower and unleash its pollen as early as tomorrow. And then the reason will become clear for its grim nickname: the corpse flower.

“People will say, ‘Do you have a dead animal in here?'” said Patrick J. Cullina, vice president of horticulture and facilities at the botanic garden, who has worked with similar plants of different species. The literature posted beside the harmless-looking plant describes what to expect, the “revolting smell of putrefying meat.”

There is no smell yet. A trickle of visitors gazed up yesterday at the cream-colored, rigid spathe, the fast-growing spike that has taken over the plant, resembling a giant squash and now bigger than a man’s leg. Days ago, it burst horror-movie style through the green leaves that wrapped it. More visitors are expected as the bloom approaches, and the flower’s progress, but not its smell, can be tracked from the garden’s Web site, www.bbg.org.

In 1937 and again in 1939, thousands turned out to watch bloomings in the Bronx. According to The New York Times, the odor “almost downed” newspaper reporters, and was described by an assistant curator at the botanical garden there as “a cross between ammonia fumes and hydrogen sulphide, suggestive of spoiled meat or rotting fish.” It became the official flower of the Bronx, until 2000, and it seems the bizarre specimen — why the heck does a flower smell like bad meat? — can still draw a crowd. More than 10,000 people visited a blooming corpse flower at the University of Connecticut in Storrs in 2004.

The flower was first discovered in Sumatra, its native terrain, in 1878 by Odoardo Beccari. It was an immediate sensation. An English artist assigned to illustrate the plant is said to have become ill from the odor, and governesses forbade young women from gazing upon its indelicate form. (Its formal name ends in “phallus” for good reason.)

Don’t Call My Mermaid A Fat Log!

Mermaids are to manatees as manatees are to fat logs:

Tom Earle and his son David have not seen it, but they have already named it — Tappie, for its choice of the Tappan Zee section of the Hudson River as a vacation destination.

John Vargo has not seen it, either, but he insists it “has found heaven” in the brackish, fertile section where the Croton River’s fresh water empties into the salty Hudson. Randy Shull, 37, from Ossining, says he swam with it last weekend but just missed taking a picture of it. And the Buck twins, Larry and Don, say they saw a large marine mammal break the surface of the river near the Croton Yacht Club, but was it really a manatee?

Well, was it?

. . .

Ian Heller, 15, and Jeff Samalot, 16, said they saw the manatee while in their 17-foot power boat heading from Haverstraw to the Shattemuc Yacht Club in Ossining, where they teach sailing.

“We were just off Croton Point and we saw what looked like a fat log in front of us, but then it rolled and swam away,” Ian said. “I’ve never seen a log do that.”

“It was too big to be a seal, and we kind of dismissed it until we heard later that there’s a manatee around,” Jeff added.

. . .

At the Croton Yacht Club a week ago Sunday, Joe Consula, 49, and the Buck twins, Larry and Don, 59, saw some kind of large mammal break the glassy surface of the river about 20 feet from shore and then submerge and continue quickly upriver. They don’t agree on what it was.

“I just don’t think it could be a manatee. If anything, I’d say it was a seal,” Larry Buck said.

“Well, it was blackish, grayish brown,” Mr. Consula countered. “It was too big to be a seal.”

“Well, it had to be,” Larry Buck said.

“Nah, I saw its face and it’s much bigger than that. I’m going with manatee,” Mr. Consula said.

“Well, I’m going with seal,” Larry Buck said. “Manatee’s too far-fetched for me.”

“Did I see it too, Larry?” asked Don Buck, who says he recently began losing his short-term memory.

“You did, Don, trust me,” his brother assured.

Funny, I Thought For Sure It Was A Mermaid

Don’t tell me there’s a manatee in the Hudson now:

Added to the chronicles of great beasts that have descended upon New York City in the year 2006 is one that is arguably the greatest of them all. A beast, upwards of 1,000 pounds and a cousin to the elephant, which dwarfs the coyote, the deer and the dolphin that preceded it. A beast that, at hundreds of miles north of its natural habitat, has most likely made the longest and most arduous journey among them. A beast, with a pudgy-nosed face and a sweet-potato-shaped body, that could even be considered cute: a manatee.

Over the past week, boaters and bloggers have been energetically tracking a manatee in its lumbering expedition along the Atlantic Coast and up the Hudson River.

John H. Vargo, the publisher of Boating on the Hudson magazine, put out an alert last week, much to the incredulity of some boaters.

“Some were laughing about it, because it couldn’t possibly be true,” Mr. Vargo said.

The manatee has been spotted at 23rd Street near Chelsea Piers, West 125th Street, and later in Westchester County. It appeared to be healthy.

Randy Shull, a boater from Ossining, spotted the manatee about 4:30 p.m. yesterday while his 21-foot boat was floating at Kingsland Point Park in Sleepy Hollow.

“It was gigantic,” Mr. Shull said. “When we saw it surface, its back was just mammoth.”

It is unusual, but not unprecedented for manatees to travel this far north — the seaweed-munching sea creatures are commonly associated with the warm waters of Florida.

Manatees have been reported along the shores of Long Island and even as far north as Rhode Island. It is unusual, however, for a manatee to be spotted inland in a river this far north.

Who’s The Big Frankenfish That Survives On Land And Makes You His Bitch? Snap! It’s The Northern Snakehead!

A year after the superpredator snakehead fish was found in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the problem fish is still not entirely under control:

The “frankenfish” lives.

That’s the verdict of state wildlife officials, who continue to catch the northern snakehead — popularly known as “the frankenfish” for its voracious appetite, razor sharp teeth and ability to live out of water for hours — in Willow and Meadow lakes in Flushing Meadows Park.

A Queens College professor first spotted the alien invaders more than a year ago. After hunting the fish with weighted nets, trawling the waters with a boat fitted with small electric shockers and even flooding the lakes with seawater, state biologists have yet to eliminate the hardy predators.

Only last week, Jim Gilmore, natural resources supervisor with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, pulled three more out of the two lakes. He was quick to put the catch in perspective. “We’ve found quite a few animals, but we’ve yet to find any juveniles,” Gilmore said. “You’re not seeing hundreds of them.”

The snakehead is an invasive species that is illegal to import or release into the wild. Biologists suspect it was introduced into Willow and Meadow lakes as part of a Buddhist ritual, or in the hopes of stocking the lakes with the fish, a delicacy in Asian countries. The northern snakehead can grow up to 3 feet long, has a sleek, torpedo shaped body and mottled, snake like scales.

Having pledged to eradicate the snakeheads after their discovery last summer, the Parks Department and the Department of Environmental Conservation have been unable to wipe out the tenacious fish, but are hesitant to take more extreme measures.

“A drastic solution would be poisoning both lakes. That would be a severe thing, and we’re hopefully not going to do that,” Gilmore said.

The danger of the snakehead is its status as an “apex,” or top, predator. Once it secures a position in an ecosystem and begins reproducing, it can quickly take over the top of the food chain, breed prodigiously and eventually wipe out weaker native species.

According to Gilmore, the good news is that the failure to catch any juveniles suggest that the snakeheads are not breeding successfully. “I was more concerned last summer,” he added. “I don’t think they’re taking the lake over. I think we’re eventually going to get rid of them.”

Location scout: Meadow Lake.

How Do I Like The Hawks? I Love All Hawks!

Lola and Pale Male, feeling the heat from the Zahns, have relocated to the West Side. Just one bit of advice — repeat after me, “I love the hawks! I love the hawks!”:

The city’s most famous red-tail hawks, Pale Male and his main chick, Lola, have apparently left their upper East Side roost for a fancy new perch atop the Beresford on the upper West Side.

“I love the hawks!” Seinfeld told the Daily News yesterday as he left his Beresford co-op and got into his silver Mercedes-Benz M350. “I can’t get enough of the hawks.”

Pale Male and Lola could be seen yesterday flying to and from their new address overlooking Central Park in the 22-story building’s rococo southeast tower. One of the birds appeared to have twigs in its beak, leading observers to believe they are building a nest.

Actress Glenn Close, who lives in the tony building on Central Park West, was surprised to learn of her new neighbors upstairs.

“What hawks?” Close asked The [Daily] News. “I love hawks.”