Balloon flowers.

 The plants form a low, neat mound and bear 2- to 3-inch cup like blossoms accented with delicate purple veins and yellow stamens. Balloon flowers are a cottage garden standard, and they are excellent for cutting.

 This heavy bloomer gets its name from the way each flower bud swells before its starry petals unfold. Balloon flowers are one of the easiest perennials you'll ever grow, and they bloom in profusion in mid to late summer, when many other perennials are beginning to fade.

 Start new plants from seeds in spring, just after the last winter frost, or summer, up to 2 months before the first fall frost. When starting indoors, sow in individual pots 6-8 weeks before the last expected frost. Seeds require light to germinate, so press them lightly onto the soil, and don't cover. 

 Clumps of balloon flowers are very well behaved in the perennial garden - they don't spread and never crowd their neighbours. The blue shades of balloon flowers are striking when planted in combination with gold or deep orange cosmos or yarrows. 

Type: perennial
Propagation: seeds
Light: full sun or part shade
Flower Color: blue, pale pink, white
Bloom Time: summer
Height: 2-3 feet
Width: 12 inches
Soil Requirements: neutral pH, average moisture
Zones: 3-8
Uses: cutting bed, border,

Arum flowers pictures.

Titan arums are true giants amongst flowering plants: the circumference of their huge flowers can be over three metres and they stand three metres high and the single leaf grows to the size of a small tree. Their smell, likened to rotting meat, is so bad it led to the common name 'corpse flower'. Both the 'fragance' and the flower's meat-colouration attract pollinators - carrion flies and beetles.

The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "phallus", and titan, "giant" [Giant Misshapen Penis]) is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The titan arum's inflorescence is not as large as that of the Talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera, but the inflorescence of the Talipot palm is branched rather than unbranched.

Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal, the titan arum is characterized as a carrion flower, and is also known as the "corpse flower", or "corpse plant" (Indonesian: bunga bangkai � bunga means flower, while bangkai means corpse or cadaver). For the same reason, the title "corpse flower" is also attributed to the genus Rafflesia which, like the titan arum, grows in the rainforests of Sumatra.