News Digest

Thousands line up for rare corpse flower bloom that stinks like ‘rotting flesh’

Thousands of curiosity seekers lined up in the blustery, dark Chicago Botanic Garden on Tuesday night to catch a rare glimpse of a 4-½-foot (1.4-meter) tall corpse flower in full bloom, but not in full stench. The garden in a north Chicago suburb planned to stay open until 2 a.m. on Wednesday to let the crowds see the blooming corpse flower - properly known as the titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum - during the 24 to 36 hours it is expected to stay in bloom.

We were certainly all disappointed with Spike not opening a month ago. However we were able to learn a lot.

Tim Pollak

Titan arum flowers typically stink like rotting flesh when they bloom. The smell is aimed at attracting pollinators that help it reproduce. However, evening visitors to the first titan arum ever to bloom in the Chicago area were relieved, or maybe disappointed, that the stench had dissipated over the day. The titan arum, dubbed Alice, surprised experts when it suddenly bloomed this week. Another titan arum at the garden, Spike, failed to bloom after weeks of anticipation this past summer.

It wasn’t as smelly as we thought.

Hanam Tran.