Well, I can’t smell it from here on the Left Coast, but those of you in nose-shot of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden may soon get to partake of the wonder that is the Amorphophallus titanum, aka “corpse flower”.
Yes, you guessed it, this fragrant bloom smells like a dead animal. Flies loooove it.
If you’re not going to be near Brooklyn in the near future (or, you know, you don’t want to hurl), you can follow the blooming of the corpse flower vicarously on a BBG blog, or watch it on webcam. (There is no live smell-o-cast, but undoubtedly someone is working on that technology for next time!)
Ni Hao! Kannichi Wa!Better to be a plant than a Phi Beta Kappa model with trimethylaMinuria.What’s the chemistry here?MOTYR
you may have a look here as well:
http://www.botgart.uni-bonn.de/
http://www.botgart.uni-bonn.de/o_samm/guinness.html
It’s titanum, not titanium (a metal flower probably wouldn’t be as smelly). It looks like the BBG’s won’t reach ten feet, like the Bonn garden’s, but it did grow thirty inches (to 65″) between July 31 and August 10. I actually live in Brooklyn; I’m still deciding whether I need to go for the full synesthetic experience, or should be satisfied with the smell-free webcam version.
“Baby”, BBG’s name for their specimen, reached peak reek between 8pm, Thursday, August 10, and 4-5am, Friday, August 11. Only BBG staff enjoyed the full experience.
The plant was nevertheless physically impressive. I visited it twice in two days last week and blogged about it extensively.