I saw (and smelled) the Corpse Flower Bloom

At the Spheres in downtown Seattle

I was on a local Reddit when someone posted that the Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) had bloomed. This flower is famous for the pungent aroma, size, and rarity of it’s blooms. It only blooms once every 7-10 years for 24-48 hours.

It was located at The Spheres which has a very interesting architecture consisting of glass domes. Created by Amazon for workers to be able to work in a different environment, a portion of it was open to the public for free.

Quite a few other people were there to see the flower as well, so we queued up outside in groups of 30 which were then escorted into the building to witness the flower. It is very large, up to 10 feet tall. I’m not sure this one was that tall but definitely much taller than me (I’m 6’1).

The reason for it’s name is because when it blooms it smells like rotting flesh. The smell is strongest right after it blooms and I was arriving about 17 hours after that. It wasn’t as strong as I was hoping but I did get one good whiff of it. I don’t think rotting flesh would be the description I would use, but sweaty socks and onions was pretty close. Perhaps something along the lines of the Dorian fruit for those of you that are familiar with that.

It really is beautiful, like all photographs every taken it can’t really capture the beauty of the flower. It reminded me of something from Little Shop of Horrors. Due to it’s rare blooming schedule this might be the only time in my life I happen to be at the right place and time to experience it.