Corpse Flower

On Feb 26, 2024, I read in the news that "Mirage", the so-called "Corpse Flower" in the California Academy of Sciences, was about to bloom.  It is an endangered species, it comes from Sumatra, and it only blooms one day every 7-10 years.  It is about 6 1/2 feet tall, and its scientific name, Amorphophallus titanum, hints at what it resembles.  The flower produces its own heat and can reach up to 98 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat amplifies the flower's smell when it blooms, allowing it to attract more insects that will pollinate the species.  And smell?  The last time a corpse flower did something fetid-smelling in San Francisco it was at Golden Gate Park’s Conservatory of Flowers in July 2023. When that one (named Scarlet!) detonated, the president of the San Diego Botanic Garden painted a delightful picture of the stench in a conversation with NPR: “The way I describe it,” Ari Novy said, “is it smells like if you took your teenager’s dirty laundry and you put it in a big black garbage bag, and then you added in some hamburger meat, maybe some fish, a little garlic and some parmesan cheese. And you left that by the side of the road on a very hot desert day for about 24 hours. And then you came back to it. That’s not even exaggerating. That is really what the smell was.”  Clearly, I had to see (and smell) "Mirage" for myself.

So the next day I drove to the Science Academy in Golden Gate park, and this is what I saw: