The Stinky Flower

When a plant geek goes on vacation, he doesn’t really stop working. I recently took a vacation to southern Florida. When I heard a rare corpse flower was about to bloom in Sarasota I had to drag the family to the Selby botanical gardens. The corpse flower is the largest flower on earth. It was nearly seven feet tall. They only bloom every 8-15 years, and the flower only lasts for a day or two. They had two that bloomed this year, Seymour and Audrey, named for the two main characters in “The Little Shop of Horrors”. Seymour bloomed before I got there but Audrey came into bloom while I was there. Pollen had been collected from Seymour and was used to pollinate Audrey. That was done through the square hole cut into the base visible in the photo. This made my trip a little nicer because after pollinating the stink the plant used to attract pollinators was greatly reduced. It still had a stench but not to the degree it had before pollinating. Several others are blooming this year around the country. Many think so many are blooming this year because they are all cultivated from the same parents so they are all siblings. Besides the massive corpse flower the gardens were filled with many rare plants that really get a plant geek excited! I will share a few other photos soon.

Jason

“The corpse flower is the largest flower on earth.”