DENVER, Aug. 21 (UPI) — “Stinky the Corpse Flower” has become a minor celebrity in Denver, Colorado. Everyone wants to see the giant, smelly flower.
After weeks of anticipation, the flower showed the first signs of bloom. Local television station cameras affixed to the corpse flower offered viewers a live stream of the proceedings. As the flower began to open, thousands of viewers abandoned their screens and decided to witness the flower in the flesh.
On Wednesday, 12,000 people went to the Denver Botanic Gardens to see the corpse flower, setting an attendance record. Thousands more have come since.
Glamour shot: #StinkyDBG pic.twitter.com/osXNLM68b6— DenverBotanicGardens (@Botanic) August 19, 2015
The flower, also called a carrion flower, is characterized by its gigantism and rotting flesh smell, which attracts pollinating insects. Carrion flowers, of which there are several varieties, hail from the remote jungles of Indonesia.
The species on display in Denver is known as titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum). It boasts the largest largest unbranched inflorescence (flower cluster) in the world.
At first, visitors on Wednesday were disappointed to find the corpse flower behind glass, which kept its smell from wafting through the gardens. But attendants quickly opened a vent at the back of the flower’s enclosure to allow visitors the full effect.
“I definitely see the similarities between what I smell here and what I smell down at the office,” Gary Broyles, who works at a morgue, told the Los Angeles Times.
By the end of the Thursday, the flower began to slowly close its pedals. Carrion flowers typically bloom for just a few days. After a pungent Wednesday, visitors found flower’s smell on Thursday less apparent. One woman likened the more subtle scent to her husband’s socks.
“I did expect it to smell bad, but I’m not disappointed,” 17-year-old Felicity Florescu told the Denver Post. “I didn’t want to smell it.”
Pollen collected from the flower is being taken to Chicago, where it will be used to pollinate another corpse flower at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
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