The corpse flower is blooming and you know what that means — there's a rare and stinky scent waiting for all who visit the San Diego Botanic Garden only during the next few days.
For the first time since November 2021 at the San Diego Botanic Garden, Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, is on display at the garden's carnivorous plant exhibition, Savage Gardens.
The flower only just started blooming Sunday night, according to John Clements, Director of Gardens at the San Diego Botanic Garden.
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"It smells really bad in here right now, there's people smiling and they're having a good time, but it smells bad. But it'll smell obnoxious come nightfall," Clements told NBC 7 while inside the conservatory Monday morning.
The garden will be open late on July 3 and 4 to allow visitors to view the rare bloom. It's encouraged that you reserve a spot here. To reserve a spot during extended hours, click here.
Special corpse flower viewing hours at San Diego Botanic Garden
- July 3, 9 a.m. - 11 p.m.
- July 4, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Things change quickly for a blooming corpse flower, so the garden is recording a 24-hour live stream of the plant available here (dubbed Corpse Cam).
Why does the corpse flower stink?
The corpse flower earned its nickname by imitating the odor of rotten meat in order to attract pollinators like carrion beetles and flies, according to SDBG. In order to increase its chances of pollination, its large spadix (the big yellow stem sticking out of the middle) generates heat, raising its scent high into the trees so it can attract those pollinators from farther away.
Those who've dared to smell it have described it as smelling like cheese, garlic, stinky feet, diapers or rotten fish!
"It [the smell] morphs and it flows and the smell will actually waft in waves at you, and you'll think, 'oh it doesn't smell bad, — and the next thing, you feel a wave come over," Clements described.
"And it smells like dirty diapers and rotten fish in a dumpster, and then another wave will hit you and then another wave will hit you, and then it will smell like really, really bad, dirty, funky feet with rotten dead things, and then it'll just flow into dead body," he added.
Why is the corpse flower's bloom so rare?
Most of these Sumatran-rainforest-native plants need to age seven to 10 years before blooming for the first time. After that, they bloom only every four or five years afterwards.
After fully blooming, it will emanate its famous stench for only three days before starting to close up and decay slowly over the next few weeks.
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“The corpse flower is the smelly rock star of the plant world,” said San Diego Botanic Garden President and CEO Ari Novy, Ph.D.
“Its putrescence attracts pollinators in its native habitat in Sumatra, Indonesia, while also attracting curious humans from around the world excited to experience this beautiful, stinky, giant inflorescence.”
