A greenhouse at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx currently reeks.
The corpse flower, also known as titan arum, was in Bloom last Friday, and it drew waits that lasted over an hour in the hot sun just so patrons could smell it for themselves.
The corpse flower is a flower that blooms every 7-10 years and expels into the world the smell of rotting meat to attract critters and pollinate.
This 10-year corpse flower is the official flower of the Bronx in New York City, being named so 80 years ago when the first one blossomed at the New York Botanical Gardens.
Although this is the flower of the Bronx, a corpse flower has not bloomed at the NYGB since that one 80 years ago, that is until this summer when New York was again blessed with the stinky flower's bloom.
In the picture above, there is a cucumber looking tree just behind this flowering corpse flower. That plant is actually another corpse flower in a different stage of its existence.
These flowers are solely native to western Sumatra (Indonesia) but have been taken to gardens and conservatories across the world. The flower can reach up to 10ft in height and once they bloom, they only remain in bloom for 24-48 hours before closing up and waiting another 7-10 years to open.
The odor is really what draws the big crowds to this special flower (I waited over an hour to see it). The best description I've heard of the flower was, "It smells like the meat trash on 42nd and 8th," or "It smells like when a mouse dies in the walls and starts to decompose."
Those descriptions may make your stomach drop, and think that you could never be around this plant, but the smell was only potent when you got really close to the flower. It was smelly, and I wouldn't want to be around the flower all day, but I would come back in 10 years to see it again.
The reason for its rancid smell is to attract pollinators to it. The corpse flower attracts insects that feed on dead animals or ones that lay their eggs in rotting meat. Because of this, the smell grows more pungent as night falls, a time when carrion beetles and flesh flies are active as pollinators, and then lightens up as the sun rises.
When the plant is done blooming, it's beautiful red and green petals shrivel up and expose the male and female flowers that come together for the big bloom. This plant is actually multiple that come together to form what we all come to see bloom, and can be a mix of male and female plants of 2 or more.
If you're kicking yourself for not seeing this amazing flower, fear not! Most of the corpse flowers, like the one at the NYBG, do only bloom every 7-10 years, but there are corpse flowers that bloom every year. Many botanists and plant enthusiasts have them at their own homes, and if you're feeling adventurous you can buy one for yourself.
