It's the first day of summer, the perfect time to brace ourselves for the smells that will be wafting from sidewalks. But there's one stinky smell you may be making a specific trip for: The blooming of the corpse flower at the New York Botanic Garden.
The NYBG announced that the Amorphophallus titanum is on display in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory starting today. The huge plant can also be seen on the livestream—see all the people taking selfies and tagging it #corpseflower:
It takes about 10 years to tend to the plant to the point where it will flower, and the bloom is only for about a day or two, so it truly is an event. The NYBG had a corpse flower bloom in 2016, where there were waits for up to an hour to catch a whiff.
Some describe the smell as being like rotting meat or cabbage, but Marc Hachadourian, Director of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections at the NYBG, told us, "It’s quite a strong odor, really more like rotting meat than socks or any other bad odor. Of course fragrance is subjective and many people will smell other things. The chemical composition of the flower is actually similar to a number of terrible odors all mixed together from rotting fish to limburger cheese." The smell is to attract flesh-eating critters.
The flower actually "pulses" every few minutes and releases more scent, kind of like sidewalk garbage bags in August.
When asked when the corpse flower will actually bloom, NYBG spokesperson Nicholas Leshi said, "It’s so unpredictable. That’s part of its allure. It could be anytime in the next week or two."
He added, "And it could be as early as this weekend, you never know!"
You can also see the plant's progress on Facebook and Instagram. We've reached out to the NYBG to find out when this one is expected to bloom, and will update when we hear back.
