It Has a Tendency to Linger

I'm going to guess that I shouldn't be touching that other plant. OOPS!


I think it makes perfectly good sense that there should be an anomaly of nature lovingly referred to as a "Corpse Flower" within driving distance of our every day life. This flower and all of it's Walt Whitmanesque parts is rather large and a bit slow. This is only the second time in 8 years that it has flowered. The first time was in 2008 after 6 1/2 years of waiting and now on June 9, 2010.

Eastern Illinois University's greenhouse has loved and nurtured a "Titan Arum" (there's even a more technical name than that, but it borders on inappropriateness). This is also known as the Corpse Flower, not because of it's shape and look (as the longer, "real" name does) but because of it's smell. In order to attract flies to pollinate in it's wild, natural habitat of Sumatra, it smells like rotting flesh. While I didn't think the smell was all THAT bad, it does kind of stick with you. Hours later I think I have Corpse Flower essence in my sinuses. It will forever change the way I think when I pass ripe road kill or an overflowing dumpster on a warm, muggy day.

Part of the "adventure" of seeing this in person was in the online Adventure. An URL with a live view of the bloom and a chat room! Woo-hooo LOL. While Kyd slept off her St. Louis adventures, I watched TV, avoided cleaning the kitchen, napped and watched an embarrassingly large and stinky flower sloooooooooooowly bloom online. Ahhhh what a life.

Finally, we decided we needed to see this thing in person and about 9:30 pm headed out to Charleston. The Dad of the house was STILL at work, so he met us there and we went as a family. Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Overall, this is much more impressive in real life. The colors are so much more rich and vibrant than the web cam shows.

It took 6 1/2 years of nurture and patience for this flower to bloom the first time and 2 years later, we're here to see it for the second time.

Everyone has asked about the odor. I posted this to the pictures on my facebook page:

The greenhouse .. guru.. said it was nowhere near as stinky as it was when it bloomed the first time in 2008. Keeping in mind that I have smelled an apartment that's actually had a rotting corpse in it for a week, this was nowhere near as bad as that. It was like hot roadkill a few days later; or an over flowing dumpster on a warm, muggy day. Like throwing meat in the can the day after the trash is picked up and then sniffing it again right before the next pick-up. In July.

It's the morning "After" and it's sticking with us. Every once in a while one of us will say, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Corpse Flower".