It’s good to stop and smell the flowers — well, you’re not going to want to stop for long to smell the titan arum when it’s in bloom at the Arnold Arboertum — which is also called the corpse flower. So you can imagine how bad it reeks.
While stinking quite bad, it’s also an uncommon phenomenon, as corpse flowers don’t bloom often, albeit one of the two titan arum plants at the Arnold Arboretum bloomed last year.
Native to the tropical forests of Indonesia, the corpse plant boasts the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence at 8-10 feet in height, according to the arboretum. Its brief bloom is accompanied by the strong odor of rotting meat, a volatile scent that attracts the carrion-feeding beetles that pollinate this exceedingly rare and threatened plant. Arboretum staff have affectionately named the plant “Pepé Le Pew”, which will likely bloom within the new few weeks at our Weld Hill Research Building.
The bloom period is very brief—just 24 to 48 hours—and the capacity in the Arboretum’s greenhouses is limited, so viewing times for the corpse flower will be only be offered to current Arboretum members. You can join the Arboretum here.
