Alaskan Expatriate

I’m a nerd. I’ll admit it. I was tipped off at the beginning of July to keep an eye out for developments at the Volunteer Park botanical Conservatory. Waldo was getting ready to bloom. I checked the site religiously every week, watching his growth and waiting for him to bloom. Last week, it finally happened.

Waldo is an Amorphophallus titanium, or corpse flower. It’s definitely not the prettiest flower, but that isn’t the draw. Amorphophallus titanium is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched bloom in the world. It is a carnivorous plant and uses its rotting flesh stench to attract flies and other insects for lunch.

Walking into the conservatory, I’m actually nervous with excitement. I expect to walk into the room and be overwhelmed from the stench, but I’m not. The room smells like soil, not rotting flesh. The phallus is much larger than the bloom itself and I’m kind of under whelmed. I take a few pictures and move along the barrier that keeps people from disturbing Waldo. As I am abeam the flower, I smell it, and dry heave. It reeks worse than anything left too long in the fridge. I don’t have anything to equate it with, but it does smell like spoiled meat… just much stronger. I smell again, this time expecting it, but still I’m overwhelmed by the sharp, sour scent.

The bloom only lasts a few days and was already withering by it’s third day of blooming, but now I can say I’ve smelled it – and it really does stink.