THE SMELL OF SUCCESS
Corpse flower blooms for the first time after eight years of dormancy
Sept. 23, 2024
Photography: John Eisele / CSU Photography.
It was likened to burning hair, decaying meat, a dead mouse, bad body odor, and rotten Fritos.
The odor of Colorado State University’s corpse flower might have been putrid when the plant bloomed over Memorial Day weekend. But it attracted about 10,000 visitors who wanted to see and smell the fascinating flower – much like carrion beetles and flies are drawn to corpse flowers in the wild. (Although the latter offer pollination.)
In fact, the plant’s rarity in the wild was part of the sensation. The corpse flower, named for its odor, is native to tropical rainforests in Sumatra, Indonesia, and there are fewer than 1,000 individual plants in this natural habitat, according to the U.S. Botanic Garden. The species is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Botanical gardens and universities have begun cultivating corpse flowers to better understand them and to preserve their genetics.
Colorado State acquired its corpse flower in 2016, when Tammy Brenner, manager of CSU’s Plant Growth Facilities, took part in a plant swap at a conference. Funny tidbit: She didn’t take anything to the swap because the conference host usually supplies the plants; besides, “It’s hard to travel with plants.”
About 10,000 people visited the Plant Growth Facilities on the Colorado State University campus to see a rare corpse flower and its short-lived bloom.
The corpse flower took its place at the Plant Growth Facilities, a research center that includes greenhouses, classrooms, and a conservatory open to the public. Here, it sat. And sat. And sat some more – dormant for eight years, another curious aspect of the plant.
A volunteer at Plant Growth Facilities earned the right to name the corpse flower as a thank-you for the time she puts in. She named it after her cat – Cosmo.
When Cosmo did bloom for the first time, the process took about two days from blossom to collapse. Now, it is expected to stay dormant for a few more years, until environmental factors, energy accumulation, and a chain of protein reactions tickle it to bloom again.
While Cosmo was in its glory, researchers collected pollen, measured factors related to photosynthesis, and analyzed scent compounds in the air. The bloom was 3 feet in diameter, living up to the species’ status as the largest unbranched inflorescence – or collection of flowers acting as one – in the plant kingdom.
“It was kind of crazy,” Brenner said of the whole affair. “I can’t believe so many people came out of the shadows to see this thing.”
SHARE