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Peter1469
08-03-2016, 05:34 PM
A corpse flower blooms in DC (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/washington-the-corpse-flower-is-ready-for-its-smelly-close-up/2016/08/02/6fd6bece-58d7-11e6-9767-f6c947fd0cb8_story.html)

I should walk over and check it out. It is probably 25 minutes from my office. If so I will take pics. Maybe Friday I will have time.


Washington’s corpse flower, or titan arum, bloomed on Tuesday in a rare morning opening of a plant the gardeners at the U.S. Botanic Garden (https://www.usbg.gov/corpseflower) have nicknamed Charlotte.

She took her own sweet time to unfurl the maroon cape that surrounds the central spike of the world’s largest unbranched flower. But that may be the only thing about Charlotte that is sweet. She opened at around 4 a.m. and by late morning was greeting visitors with odors that ranged from rotting cabbage to stinky trash and worse. Over the next few hours, and particularly Tuesday evening, her horticultural minders anticipate the flower to unleash the rotten flesh stink that gives it its common name.


This oddity is a native of the steamy Sumatran jungle and thus it is perfectly at home in a Washington summer — though it is a devil to keep going in other seasons and requires real horticultural skill to bring to flowering stage. In the wild, the flower’s fragrance is designed to draw pollinating beetles and flies that feed off dead animals. Instead, Charlotte is proving a magnet for humans as the botanic garden gears up to manage visitors over the next two days.

Private Pickle
08-03-2016, 05:35 PM
They smell like death...hence the name...

Peter1469
08-03-2016, 05:35 PM
Smelled that before.

Private Pickle
08-03-2016, 05:36 PM
Smelled that before.

Likewise. I don't ever care to smell it again.

FindersKeepers
08-03-2016, 05:51 PM
A corpse flower blooms in DC (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/washington-the-corpse-flower-is-ready-for-its-smelly-close-up/2016/08/02/6fd6bece-58d7-11e6-9767-f6c947fd0cb8_story.html)

I should walk over and check it out. It is probably 25 minutes from my office. If so I will take pics. Maybe Friday I will have time.


Do.

I've heard of those but never had the (dis)pleasure to see one in person.

It's huge!

Peter1469
08-03-2016, 05:57 PM
Do.

I've heard of those but never had the (dis)pleasure to see one in person.

It's huge!

I have seen it when it was not in bloom.

sachem
08-03-2016, 08:47 PM
Not a pretty girl by conventional standards. I guess odor is her selling point. Lucky girl.