Look: Rare Corpse Flower Now Blooming In Michigan

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — The worst smelling flower in the world, the rare corpse flower, has started to bloom at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in West Michigan, drawing hundreds in to see -- and smell it. Around the facility, the nearly 5-foot-tall plant is reportedly known as "Putricia," for its putrid smell.

Typically it takes seven years for this rare beauty to bloom, but this one was planted 18 years ago and is just now blooming for the first time, according to Wood TV8.

WOOD TV8 and the Meijer Gardens have set up a live stream of the flower's bloom this week. It reportedly started opening Wednesday night, giving way to a bright colored flower in the center and a line this morning as people eagerly wait to behold it.

The rare titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is also known as the corpse flower because it can smell like rotting flesh. The smell attracts insects such as carrion beetles and flies that pollinate the plant. And such pollination is important, because the titan arum can’t self-pollinate; its female flowers mature before the male, or pollen-producing, flowers.

Screen capture via WOOD livestream

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