Los Angeles, 18 July 2026
Serendipity has struck again!
I was perusing the Guardian newspaper a few days ago when my eye fell on the following title: “Thousands flock to see brief and rare blooming of corpse flowers in California”. Corpse flowers?! What on earth are they? It had me diving into the article to discover more.
It turns out that the corpse flower is the titan arum, or Amorphophallus titanum, which translates as the Giant Misshapen Phallus. This photo of the plant explains its scientific name.
This is a bit of a naughty name, and one of course that immediately brought out my extremely childish side. Readers might be interested to know that the plant’s English name, titan arum, is said to have been coined during the filming of David Attenborough’s 1995 documentary “The Private Life of Plants” because the genera’s name Amorphophallus was considered to be “too rude” for prim British TV audiences …
But why corpse flower? Well, that’s what the locals in Sumatra, which is where the plant comes from, call it. And they call it that because when the plant flowers, it emits a veritable stench. Scientists have analysed the stench and found it to contain dimethyl trisulfide (a component of the stink given off by the very smelly limburger cheese), dimethyl disulfide (garlic; anyone who has walked through a field of flowering garlic knows how pungent that smell can be), trimethylamine (rotting fish), isovaleric acid (sweaty socks), and indole (faeces). Eew!
The plant has evolved the ability to give off this stink so as to attract its main pollinators, carrion beetles and flesh flies; they lay their eggs in rotting meat. What a mean trick! When these insects arrive, expecting to find a nice chunk of putrid flesh they run into a bunch of boring flowers. It must be really frustrating for them.
The titan arum is in good company. Several plants worldwide have come up with the same smelly strategy: the South African carrion plant (“flowers that smell like roadkill”)
the Indonesian monster flower (“releases a highly pungent smell of rotting meat”)
the Mediterranean dead horse arum (“foul scent”)
the North American eastern skunk cabbage (“emits a strong skunk-like odour”)
Well! A must-see (and must-smell) plant! And it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience! The plant only flowers every five years or so and the flowers last just a few days. I read further into the Guardian article. It so happened that two of the plants were flowering at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Fantastic! My wife and I had been wanting to visit the Huntington again on this trip, but had never quite got around to it. Now we had our excuse. And our daughter wanted to come too! Time being of the essence (that short flowering period …), we decided to go the next day. Our little grandson would be coming with us – he needs to feed and sleep on a strict schedule.
And so the next day, we set off – a little behind schedule, but hey! the baby takes precedence. Once arrived, we hurried to the greenhouse where the two Giant Misshapen Phalluses were being exhibited. Luckily, there were no lines. So we were able to inspect the plants at our ease. The staff had named one Odora and the other Odorysseus (no doubt in honour of the film The Odyssey which has just come out and which we will be seeing next weekend). Odorysseus stood tall and proud waiting for its spathe to open up
while Odora’s spathe had fallen off, exposing the rows of flowers at the very bottom of the spadix (all terms I have since learned from the plant’s Wikipedia entry).
But wait! Something was missing, where was the foul smell? Alas, to my consternation, I discovered that the plant gives off its noxious scent only at night, because that is when its pollinators, the carrion insects, are active. So, short of ducking behind one of the greenhouse’s palms and staying hidden until after the museum had closed and night had fallen, I wasn’t going to experience its revolting odour. Sad! as the current inhabitant of the White House might say.
And our grandson in all this kerfuffle? He slept serenely through it all …
the heart thrills 