The world’s smelliest flower has bloomed in NY – and it stinks! In 1999, botanists from the Huntington Botanical Gardens managed to pollinate the plant artificially using grounded male flowers, resulting in several fertile seeds.
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The Corpse Flower can be viewed in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory’s Palms of the World Gallery. This is IU’s flower’s first bloom. The corpse flower, Latin name Amorphophallus titanum, slowly started opening for the first time in 80 years last week. However, the decade long wait generally lasts in two days because the flower dies promptly within 24 to 36 hours.
If you’re not interested in getting an up close and personal whiff of the flower, you can check out the livestream above.
In an oddity for such a rare occurrence, corpse flowers are on the verge of blooming in other greenhouses across the country, including St. Louis, Sarasota, Fla., and Washington, D.C. A second specimen bloomed at the site in 1939.
The New York Botanical Garden identified the corpse flower as the Amorphophallus Titanum. Courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden.
As the flowers unfold, they release their signature stench – the smell of decaying flesh – that attracts flesh-eating insects, including dung beetles and flesh flies. The plant also undergoes a chemical reaction, heating up to better mimic decomposition. “It’s essentially trickery. This is a big bait and switch scam”.
It was discovered in Sumatra, Indonesia, back in 1878 by Odoardo Beccari.
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“During bloom, the spadix self-heats to approximately human body temperature, which helps disseminate odor particles”, explained the Botanical Garden, in a statement.
