DENVER – The Denver Botanic Gardens’ corpse flower is expected to bloom in all its rotting-corpse-smelling glory in early to mid-September.
The Denver Post reports horticulturalists at the Gardens warned there is always the possibility that the bloom will be a bust, but the 18-year-old plant is enough of an anomaly to draw crowds.
The pungent flower blooms only once every 3 to 15 years. The bloom lasts for up to 48 hours.
The Botanic Gardens will be open for regular hours during the bloom, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. On bloom day, members can turn up an hour early to get the first sniffs.
The bloom boasts a stench said to smell like rotting flesh. The smell, intended to attract flies and carrion beetles for pollination, gets stronger in late evening.
