My Visit with the NYBG’s Blooming Corpse Flower

After hearing a lot over the past few years about the corpse flower (Amorphophallus Titanum or titan-arum) I closely watched the New York Botanical Garden‘s “Corpse Flower Cam” for the past week to see when theirs would bloom. This is a big event in the horticulture world, because the plant is rare outside of Sumatra and takes years to bloom. The NYBG last had a blooming one on display in 1939. This one took 10 years to finally begin blooming at 3:30pm on 28 June 2016.

I was part of the excited throng which descended upon Haupt Conservatory as soon as the doors opened today. I’ve heard people refer to it as “the world’s largest flower”, and it is an impressive sight. It gets its nickname from the smell of rotting flesh it puts out to attract pollinators. Because it was more than 12 hours into its 24-36 hour bloom cycle when I saw it the next morning I got only a whiff of something rotten in the air. The smell would have been much stronger the night before when it was at its peak.

Over the course of 90 minutes I enjoyed the other displays in the conservatory and made a couple more passes by the corpse flower. Then because the weather had cleared and I had the whole morning I enjoyed the perennial garden and gift shoppe before leaving. I even used my NYC ID to get a free grounds membership good for a year while I was there. Though the bloom of the corpse flower was what brought me back to the garden for the first time in a couple of years, I intend to visit often in the coming months.