Come Quick and Smell This Awful Thing — Corpse Flower Is in Bloom

Come quick and smell this awful thing — corpse flower is in bloom

It’s big, it’s beautiful and it’s stinky. It’s also in bloom in D.C., though not for long. The scientific name for the giant plant is Amorphophallus titanum. But it’s most commonly known as the corpse flower and it’s in bloom at the United States Botanic Garden now.

A “Corpse Flower” That Smells Like Rotting Meat Is in Bloom at the Botanic Garden - Washingtonian

The corpse flower in bloom at the US Botanic Garden. Photograph by Katie Doran.Thousands of visitors are clamoring to catch a glimpse—or a nausea-inducing whiff—of a corpse flower at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, during its rare and fleeting bloom on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the garden’s Tropics house, visitors swarm the plant like flies to honey. But the corpse flower is no sweet-smelling bloom: it’s so-named for giving off the putr…

DC's 'corpse flower' blooms for the first time in years

The titan arum, also known as the “corpse flower", is about to bloom at the Botanical Gardens. The flower has a bloom period of only 24 - 48 hours every five to ten years, usually prompting hundreds of people to wait in line before it goes back into hiding.