Huntington Library Brings On The Stink as Rare Corpse Flower Blooms, Delighting Visitors with Its Stench

A towering, foul-smelling plant known as the “Corpse Flower” bloomed overnight Sunday at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Hundreds of visitors flocked to witness the rare event on Monday.

The flower, properly called Amorphophallus titanum and commonly referred to as the “Titan Arum,” is native to the tropical rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It takes about 20 years to reach flowering size and blooms only every five to six years.

“It’s a very rare event when they do flower,” said Bryce Dunn, conservatory gardener at the Huntington. “And the flower only lasts about a day or two.”

The conservatory mimics the hot, humid conditions of the plant’s native habitat. Temperatures are kept between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit to encourage growth and blooming.

This particular flower, named “Odora,” began opening around 5 p.m. Sunday. It reached peak bloom, with its characteristic rotting meat odor, around 2 a.m. Monday.

“By the time I got here this morning, which was 7:00 a.m., it was already on its way to closing,” Dunn said. “It was still pretty wide.”

The plant’s putrid smell attracts pollinators like sweat bees, flesh flies and carrion beetles. Its leaf can grow up to 12 feet tall, while the flowering structure is typically smaller.

Huntington botanists may hand-pollinate the flower, cutting a hole in the spathe to access the hundreds of tiny blooms at the base of the central spadix.

If pollinated, the spathe and spadix will fall off. The remaining stalk will develop fruits containing seeds, which can be shared with other botanical gardens for conservation.

After fruiting, the plant goes dormant for six months to a year before producing a leaf again.

Visitors who miss this bloom may have another chance soon. A second corpse flower, dubbed “Scentennial,” is expected to open in about two weeks.

The Huntington made headlines in 1999 when it exhibited California’s first corpse flower, only the 11th such bloom in the United States. That first flower was successfully pollinated, producing fertile seeds that led to several generations of corpse flowers.

“We’ve been lucky enough for the past two or three years in a row to have multiple blooms in a short time span,” Dunn said.

This year marks another milestone: three of the plant’s four growth stages – flowering, fruiting, and leafing – are on display simultaneously for the first time at the Huntington.

Recent years saw viewing difficulties due to a slug situation and COVID-19 restrictions. This year’s bloom is considered the first “back to normal” viewing experience, with the conservatory now completely open during regular hours.

Despite its brevity and stench, the corpse flower’s bloom continues to captivate the public. By midday Monday, thousands had visited the conservatory to catch a whiff.

“It’s sort of like the pinnacle of what we do here at the conservatory,” Dunn said. “I think it’s just by far the most bizarre looking thing that we have.”