Chicago enjoys rare phenomenon of a corpse flower in bloom

“Head to a Garden now to see (and smell!) a intensely singular materialisation of a remains flower in full bloom”, announced a Chicago Botanic Garden on a website. Titan arums – originally from the Indonesian rainforest – are a odd plant; after taking around 10 years to bloom, the flower dies. According to the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust, meaning of Amorphophallus titanium is “huge deformed penis”.

When it does, it blooms for about 24 to 36 hours and because of a combination of chemicals, it smells pretty putrid.

Why does it smell so stinky? Spike, another one of the botanic garden’s corpse flowers, failed to bloom in August, disappointing anxious visitors hoping to take in its stench. The plant is cultivated by botanic gardens and private collectors around the world.

The scent is most powerful at night.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Botanic Garden will be open until 2 a.m. for peak bloom viewing. The Chicago Tribune reports that the 55-inch flower is now stinking up the Garden’s semitropical greenhouse. Amorphophallus titanium plants have a very slow evolution, as experienced by Tim Pollak, an outdoor floriculturist who has been observing and caring for Alice for the past 12 years. It had lived at the garden since 2007.