WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – A rare plant is drawing thousands of visitors to the United States Botanic Garden for a glimpse – and a whiff – at an uncommon event.
An Amorphophallus Titanium or “corpse flower” planted there blooms every few years for only one to three days at a time, emitting a stink akin to rotting flesh in order to attract pollinators during the bloom cycle.
The nearly 7-foot-tall plant is already a rare sight; less than 1,000 individual plants are left in the wild. For thousands of visitors, it’s worth braving the long line winding into the greenhouse for a glimpse… and a whiff.
“It was really stinky,” said Devin Dotson, Senior Communications Specialist for the Garden, “And that’s the ‘corpse’ name, it’s smelling like a rotting animal.”
A visitor who stopped by for a sniff agreed. “I picked up kind of a musty odor,” he said. “Intriguing, very intriguing.”
For those who stopped by, it may be one of the only times they see and smell a corpse flower in full bloom. But the event is nothing new for the staff at the Botanic Garden, which has 35 in it’s collection as it works on conservation.
“If something happened to them in the wild,” Dotson explained, “we can help them be reintroduced in the wild and put them back.”
The bloom is expected to end in only a day or two, but with dozens of other corpse flowers in the Garden’s collection, Dotson says another bloom could be expected soon for those who missed out.
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