Monday, November 10, 2008

Corpse flower, anyone?

I just had to post something about this because it is so odd. I was at the Milwaukee Public Museum today and luckily for us (I guess it was lucky??) we showed up right after the corpse flower bloomed. Now what is a corpse flower, you might ask? Well here is some info on it:

"Best known for its strong putrid smell, Titan arum (corpse flower) emits an odor that has been compared with the smell of rotting flesh and can be detected from half a mile away. The odor helps the plant attract insects that carry its pollen to other titan arums, since corpse flowers can't pollinate themselves. The blooming of a titam arum has only happened about 150 times anywhere in the world."

And it really does stink!! I didn't have my camera but here is a picture of it from the museum's website, you can see from the woman standing behind it that it is HUGE - several feet tall and 2 or 3 feet across. GROSS! Connor just gave me a look like let's get the heck out of here, so we didn't stay long. The room was like 85 degrees too, whish made the "corpse" smell even worse.



Now I am guessing all of you who live outside of WI and don't get to see this are pretty jealous right now, aren't you? :)

5 comments:

NaDell said...

That is actually pretty cool. I'm so amazed by huge flowers and people who take care of them for years before they will bloom.
It makes no sense to me. I'm a lilac, rose girl. They bloom all the time for a long time. Not minutes. I just don't get it.
Pretty picture though. Glad I didn't have the "pleasure" of smelling it.

Sandra said...

That's gross! Interesting... :)

Anonymous said...

That is so cool that you were able to see it. How long does it stay in bloom? I want to smell it! (I know, isn't that just warped).

Kate said...

wow, I have never heard of such a thing!! lol.
But very interesting, although I don't think I EVER want to know what rotting flesh smells like :)
Very cool you got to experience that though!

H. said...

I'm so glad I can get back on your blog. I'd had troubles the last few times I tried.

I heard about that corpse flower! So was it really just horrific? What does it compare to?