My guess is deer. Slugs don't eat that way. Deer will eat flowers and do not touch leaves especially if he is not that hungry and the leaves are not so tender.

The spathe and spadix configuration is common in most(all?) aroids. Examples including(but not limited to) aglaonema,alocasia,anthurium,caladium,colocasia,dieffenbachia,epipremnum,monstera,philodendron,spathiphylum,xanthosoma,etc. They all have some version of it or another. :) This post was edited by asleep_in_the_garden on Thu, May 16, 13 at 11:08

Nodakgal, I'm very excited for you! Those little buds must be so exciting to see in person, getting them to bloom in North Dakota no less. Well, I think you hit it on the nail. Apparently, they will bloom only when they want too...since you had two pots in the same area, got the same treatment but only this one bloomed makes me think its not always going to have the same results even when treated the same way. Its not very common to get these to bloom for us in containers, especially outside of CA. I've been waiting almost 5 years for mine to bloom. Whatever it was that made yours bloom, I'm very happy for you! Wish we knew what it was,lol... Thanks for posting! Enjoy them.

I have the feeling that you cut off the bloom possibilities when you cut it down last fall. The blooms on the native wisteria I have come from the places where there were leaves last year (I hope that makes sense), so if you cut off almost all of the branches/growth with leaves, there will be no blooms. Mine does throw out blooms a couple more times over the summer; not as huge a display as in the spring, but still, blooms are blooms. I'm sorry that you had to cut it down to save it, but it will make it up to you next year.