Mr. Stinky, the giant corpse plant expected to bloom later this week, has become a bit of a local celebrity as plant enthusiasts await it’s flowering. The plant grew significantly over the weekend and, according to Millard Mangrum, professor of biological sciences, may bloom Friday. The corpse flower, amorphophallus titanium or titan arum, is a rare and attractive tropical plant named for the rotten-meat stench its bloom produces. The plant can grow to nine feet or more and only flowers once every seven or eight years. As it blooms, it releases powerful odors to attract pollinators, insects that feed on dead animals or lay their eggs in rotting meat. The odor has been likened to limburger cheese, rotting fish, sweaty socks and feces. Most flowers wilt within 12 hours and a seed stalk will form and produce berry-like fruits before it dies back after about two months. Mangrum, with help from Professors Michael Scanlan and Corbin Covher, are filming the plant with a time-lapse camera to capture the flowering as it occurs.
