The United States Botanic Garden previously announced that the corpse flowers would bloom between July 19 to July 22. This post has been updated as of today.
Get ready for a real stinker: the United States Botanic Garden is getting ready for two “Corpse Flowers” to bloom this week. The large tropical flowers (“Amorphophallus Titanium”) are infamous for their unpredictable bloom cycles, towering stature, and pungent odor—think: rotting flesh and humid garbage.
Stephen Jones, Collections Supervisor at the Botanic Garden, estimated that one plant would possibly bloom on Friday, July 19, with the other following a day or two later. Although the plants didn’t budge on the weekend, the Botanic Garden recently announced that one ended up opening late on Sunday night. The garden was closed at the time, but is hosting extended opening hours today until 8 PM so visitors can catch the flower in peak bloom and stinking to high heaven.
Now that one has bloomed, Jones hopes that the second flower will follow tonight. Two corpse flowers have already bloomed in 2024, but this is the first time this year that we could have two blooming in the same window.
“In the Botanic Garden, I’ve not seen that before, so we’re kind of rooting for that,” Jones says.
In the event that does occur, then yes, we could be dealing with double the smell. But the signature scent only occurs during the first 12 to 24 hours of blooming, so the plants would have to open within a short time period of each other.
Even if they don’t open at the same time, two sequential blooms at the Botanic Gardens is still an uncommon occurrence. USBG has a large collection with 35 plants, but blooms are unpredictable. Although there have already been two openings this year, there were none in 2023.
The US Botanic Garden (100 Maryland Ave., SW) is open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM. The corpse flower is located in the back of the garden’s “tropics” house. Tickets are not required.
