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SAN MARINO (CNS) - Another corpse flower is about to bloom at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino and its progress can be viewed online at www.huntington.org/corpse-flower.
The Amorphophallus titanum, also known as a Titan Arum, corpse flower and #StinkyPlant, has been called the world's largest flower, but is technically an "inflorescence," or a cluster of flowers. It can reach more than 8 feet in height when it blooms, opening to a diameter of 4 feet.
This one was 52.25 inches tall Tuesday, two inches taller than Monday. At the peak of its growth, it can grow up to 6 inches in one day. A daily growth chart is posted on the website.
When in one of its ultra-rare blooms, it gives off an odor akin to rotting flesh, attracting insects that pollinate the flowers deep inside.
According to Huntington spokeswoman Susan Turner-Lowe, the blooming plant produces two key gases -- dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide -- that also are present in decomposing animals and vegetables.
What prompts a particular plant to start the blooming process largely remains a mystery, Turner-Lowe said, but the corpse flower tends to bloom during hot weather.
When a corpse flower was first displayed at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in the late 19th century, at least one Victorian woman was said to have swooned when she got a whiff of the bloom.
The flower was first displayed in the United States in 1937 at the New York Botanical Garden.