Giant stinky flower about to bloom

“Ted the Titan,” a titan arum or corpse flower, is set to bloom at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory. The giant bloom will smell like rotting meat and last perhaps a day or two before fading.

The conservatory greenhouse is open to visitors from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. It will stay open until midnight on the day the bloom opens, said curator Ernesto Sandoval.

As of 11 a.m. June 21, Ted’s green central spike or spadix was still wrapped in the outer leaf or spathe. The spathe will eventually open up to expose the spadix, which will pulse with heat and emit a pungent scent to attract pollinating flies.

This is Ted’s fifth bloom. The plant previously flowered in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009 under the expert care of Sandoval and the conservatory staff. Another corpse plant, Tabatha, flowered in 2004; Phyllis, propagated from Tabatha, flowered in 2009 within weeks of Ted.

The scientific name for these plants is Amorphophallus titanum, and they are native to the Indonesian jungle. They may take 15 years to flower and only do so every couple of years or so, producing a single giant leaf in other years.

The Botanical Conservatory greenhouse is located on Kleiber Hall Drive, off Hutchison Drive behind Briggs Hall on the UC Davis campus.

Provided by UC Davis