Voodoo lily

Replace the carboxyl group with a hydrogen and you have the structure of cadaverine. Interestingly, the voodoo lily transforms its lysine into cadaverine in order to attract pollinators, usually those that normally dine on the carcasses of dead animals. 

The voodoo lily is a beautiful and seductive plant. The exotic-looking lily features an elaborate reproductive mechanism—a purple spike that can reach nearly 3 feet in length and is cloaked by a hoodlike leaf. But approach to the plant reveals bad news—it smells terrible ... 

What s the purpose of this intense heat production For a plant faced with limited food supplies in the very competitive tropical climate where it grows, heat production seems like a great waste of energy. The answer to this mystery is that the voodoo lily is pollinated mainly by carrion-loving insects. Thus the lily prepares a malodorous mixture of chemicals... 

The voodoo lily is only one of many thermogenic (heat-producing) plants. These plants are of special interest to biologists because they provide opportunities to study metabolic reactions that are quite subtle in "normal" plants. 

The voodoo lily attracts pollinating insects with its foul odor. 

Tissue sample size requirements are thus defined by the balance between increased sample size for greater accuracy of measurements and minimized sample size so that sufficient O2 is present for aerobic metabolism. This balance must be considered for each calorimeter and tissue used. Plant tissue producing 100 to 400 pW in an ampule volume of 1 cm and with a 0.5 h thermal equilibration time yields acceptable results for many experiments. This commonly requires 10 to 50 mg dry weight, but there are many exceptions to this generalization. One mg fresh weight voodoo lily appendix tissue at anthesis in an... 

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