Cal Poly’s rare corpse flower plant has bloomed. Does it really smell that bad?
Cal Poly’s corpse flower plant finally bloomed. So what did it smell like?
Descriptions of the bloom’s unique odor, said to resemble that of a rotting carcass, ranged from “dead animal” to “hot garbage can.”
“It smells like a dead rat in your wall, that kind of carrion smell,” said Jenn Yost, associate professor of botany at Cal Poly. “Some people have said ‘dead possum.’ Some have said ‘rotten Brussels spouts.’ ”
Last week marked the first time in Cal Poly history that a Amorphophallus titanum — also known as a titan arum, or, corpse flower plant— bloomed at the San Luis Obipso university.
Visitors flocked to campus to see and smell the corpse flower plant nicknamed Musty, which began to bloom on July 9.
On that day, Yost said, 625 people stopped by the Tropical House, adjacent to the Poly Plant Shop, to visit Musty. She expected more than 1,000 people to visit the plant July 10, noting that there was a “line down the street” at around 10:30 a.m.
“We had no idea what to expect in terms of the turnout,” Yost said, adding that those who have experienced the corpse flower “just think it’s beautiful and amazing.”
The corpse flower plant is native to the equatorial rainforests of Sumatra in Indonesia.
Every five to 10 years, the plant produces a huge maroon funnel, called the spathe, with tiny flowers on a huge spike, or, spadix, Cal Poly plant experts said. The titan arum holds the world record for the largest infloresence, or, unbranched cluster of flowers arranged on a stem.
According to Cal Poly Plant Conservatory curator Gage Willey, the corpse flower uses its foul odor to attract pollinators.
“Its pollinators are actually specialized bees that are attracted to rotting meat, and so it opens up at night and tries to get them to come give it a visit,” Willey explained.
Yost said Musty “peaked in its stinkiness” around 10 or 11 p.m. July 9 when passers-by could smell it in the nearby Poly Plant Shop parking lot.
“There were some times when I would get a whiff and it would almost make me gag,” Yost said. “You’d get used to the rotten flesh smell and then a potent jab would hit right at your nose.”
“I’m a botany professor at Cal Poly and it’s something I’ve never seen in my life before,” she said. “I had no idea what to expect as far as the smell.”
According to Yost, corpse flower blooms actually come in a range of odors. “Some can smell more fishy,” she explained.
Willey said the university’s horticulture unit received four titan arum plants from Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo in 2016. Musty was the first to flower, Willey said.
Around 80 corpse flower plants bloom every year in the United States, “which is miniscule compared to all the other plants that are flowering,” Willey said. “And it’s fairly rare to find them in the wild.”
Yost said Cal Poly botanists are pollinating Musty with pollen from a corpse flower plant at Kansas State University. They’ll then share the pollen that Musty produces with other scientists.
“What we’re doing there is making a genetically diverse set of seeds that we can spread around and plant in other conservatories,” she said, to prevent the extinction of the species.
If you missed the bloom, don’t fret.
The corpse flower plant can be viewed via livestream at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAsVqB6JJJ7V9Azpa6Cp3EQ.
Check the College of Science and Mathematics Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pg/calpolyscience/events for more information.
This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 11:43 AM.
