Return Of The Corpse Flower

Last year in June, the botanical conservatory at UC Davis was the site of the first “corpse flower” ever to bloom in Northern California. When this plant from Sumatra blooms, an event that happens every decade or so, its huge flower emits a stench like rotting flesh to attract flies as pollinators.

This year, a second one of the conservatory’s corpse flowers will be blooming. The flower, nicknamed “Tabatha the Titan”, is expected to open sometime between August 3 and August 13. The bloom doesn’t last long, the odor peaking over a period of about eight hours, so there’s not much of a window to smell the plant in its full odoriferous glory.