One of several corpse flowers at the Huntington Library is scheduled to bloom in the next few days. Access to the species is limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the event can be viewed on a webcam at the Huntington’s website.
Even an institution as staid as the Huntington Library refuses to dodge the obvious.
“Well, it’s official,” its website has declared. “2020 stinks.”
But the treasured bastion of civilization isn’t referring to the collateral damage from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rather, it’s calling attention to another impending bloom of the Amorphophallus titanium — often referred to as the corpse flower because its stench resembles that of rotting meat. The now-famous plant occasionally blossoms in the Huntington’s Conservatory, most recently on July 24, 2019, an occasion captured on time-lapse video.
“The plant is currently 36 inches tall and is growing at a rate of 2-3 inches a day,” said Lisa Blackburn, senior editor and special projects manager in the office of communications at the Huntington, noting that it is set to bloom any time between Monday, Sept. 7, and Thursday, Sept. 10.
In August 1999, a corpse flower bloomed for the first time at the Huntington, creating a rock star atmosphere among the thousands who came to visit, coaxed on by national news reports of the then-rare plant. Since that extraordinary event, the Huntington has shared the flowering with the public in six subsequent years. Currently the Huntington maintains several dozen corpse flowers in greenhouses and the Conservatory.
Not bad for a species that basically ended up in San Marino by accident.
Jim Folsom, director of the Huntington’s Botanical Gardens, was driving
through Arizona in 1999 when he dropped in on an old friend who was working at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. He showed one of the flowers — which are native to the rain forests of western Sumatra, Indonesia — to Folsom.
“He said, ‘Oh, by the way, I have one and can’t keep it,’” Folsom recalled on Monday. “It’s too big. Would you like it?” The rest is history. And it’s a history you can be part of.
Follow the progress of the corpse flower bloom by watching a live feed at huntington.org/corpse-flower.
