“[We’re] hoping that the plant will open and not only thrill us with this handsome and enormous flower but also with that famous fragrance”.
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The corpse flower, like its name suggests, emits an extremely foul odour, akin to the smell of rotting flesh.
A “corpse flower” is seen in bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., in 2013.
A pair of plants, with blooms as rare as their pungent odor, are expected to make a short-lived appearance this month in the Tropical Conservatory at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. One of the molecules, trimethylamine, hits you like rotting fish, while another, isovaleric acid, is “the cheesy, sweaty odor responsible for bad gym sock smells”.
This is an Indonesian rain forest plant that can shoot up to 12 feet. Even though the purple-green plant seems like a huge giant bud, it is composed of hundreds of tiny (smelly) flowers.
Seymour last bloomed in 2014, and before that in June 2012 and 2005.
The NYBG has a livecam of the plant in the Enid Haupt Conservatory, and has been updating the public as best it can on its social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter). And we hear that workers may also use masks, and rotate their shifts more frequently so no one has to be with the smell for too long. “It really not only looks like carrion, it smells like it as well”, Hachadourian said. Though it normally closes at 5 p.m., USBG will stay open until 8 p.m. while the flower is there and keep its doors open until 11 p.m. during peak bloom. People can also watch live-stream videos of a corpse flower at the U.S.
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Watch the livestream-the corpse flower will open for up to 36 hours and then shrivel up.
