GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A rare corpse flower is blooming this week at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in West Michigan.
WOOD TV8 and the Meijer Gardens have partnered to set up a live stream of the flower. It has already started to bloom.
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The rare titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is also known as the corpse flower because it can smell like rotting flesh. The smell attracts insects such as carrion beetles and flies that pollinate the plant. And such pollination is important, because the titan arum can’t self-pollinate; its female flowers mature before the male, or pollen-producing, flowers.
It takes at least seven years for the titan arum to bloom, and sometimes it can take even longer.
According to WOOD TV8, the plant is blooming for the first time since it was planted from a seed 18 years ago.
