It’s so grotesque that it’s hard to look away
After percolating in its own rotting flesh-scented pouch for nearly a decade, New York Botanical Garden’s Titan Arum, or corpse flower, is now in bloom. NYBG is live-streaming the event, and that just might be the way to view here. The flower that originates in Sumatra, Indonesia is so named for the repulsive stench it lets out as it begins to unfurl. (The NYBG notes that this stench is to attract pollinators that feed on dead animals. Oh, great.) In a hypothetical battle between hot, juicy street trash and this, the flower just might win.
The first corpse flower to bloom domestically was at the NYBG in 1937. In the heat of today’s momentous occasion, the garden remembers the event with a historic photograph. One thing’s for sure: that spadix (the weird fleshy-looking protrusion) is hard to miss.
#TBT to our 1937 #corpseflower, when "the odor ... came in waves of varying intensity." #nybglibrary #bronxhistory pic.twitter.com/xuk8rqMtKl
— NY Botanical Garden (@NYBG) July 28, 2016
The corpse flower will only be blooming for 24 for 36 hours. It began to show peeks of its beet red guts this afternoon, meaning the best of the spectacle is only hours away. Tune in below—this won’t happen again in New York City for about another decade.
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