Max Thompson, professor of biology and greenhouse supervisor at Southwestern College, has announced that a rare event is going to occur inside the Southwestern College greenhouse.  An Amorphophallus titanium, known as the titan arum or corpse flower, will bloom sometime in the next two weeks.

According to Thompson, only three to four bloom each year in the United States and it is the second-largest flower on the planet.  The last time the flower bloomed at Southwestern was July 12, 2014.

Thompson says that the corpse flower is native to Western Sumatra in Indonesia. This plant gets its name from the odor that emanates from it when it blooms. The scent is the smell of a dead mammal. The odor attracts blowflies and carrion beetles which the plant uses to pollinate itself.

“It is a rare event to bloom this plant as it takes years for the corm to get large enough to produce a flower,” Thompson says.  “The Southwestern College plant came from a corm from Selby Gardens in Sarasota, Fla. The corm was about 2” when we received it from the garden. Although we don’t know the exact size of it now, the last time we repotted, it weighed about 20 lbs.  The world record for weight comes from Germany where a corm weighed 258 lbs.”

The flower typically opens in mid-afternoon and stays open all night, emitting the foul stench to attract flies and beetles to pollinate it. The spadix or center part of the flower only lasts about 24 hours.
 

Southwestern College Corpse Flower Live Stream