New York City is full of unpleasant odors, from trash on the sidewalks to unspeakable substances in the subways to traffic exhaust. This week, another stench has joined the scent landscape, but this time New Yorkers are flocking to experience it. It's the blooming of Amorphophallus gigas, also known as corpse flower, at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
This unusual plant emits a smell of rotting flesh, which attracts pollinators such as beetles and flies that are normally attracted to dead animals. After the first bloom, it blooms every 3 to 5 years and can take up to 10 years to bloom. Strictly speaking, a flower is not a flower, but an inflorescence. Think hydrangeas and hyacinths. This is because it is a collection of small flowers.
When the garden announced the arrival of bloom on social media around 10:30 a.m. Friday, New Yorkers skipped work, canceled plans and rushed to witness the natural wonder. They flew around the 6-foot-tall giga, taking photos and taking deep breaths.
The stench was unavoidable in the garden's aquatic greenhouse where the plant was kept. That too has changed over time. At first it reminded me of a dead mouse, but later in the morning it started to resemble cheese or ginkgo biloba. And the experience was multi-sensory. Giga also produces heat to attract pollinators.
The Corpse Flower has become an unlikely celebrity, giving New Yorkers a strange and wonderful celebration in the cold and dark of January. After soliciting candidates on Instagram, the zoo's staff named it “Smeliot.”
Unfortunately, Smeliot will likely only be there for three days, said Chris Sprindis, gardener at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Aquatic House and Orchid Collection. On Friday, visitors seemed excited by the unusual sights and smells.
Jackie Jackson, a ceramic artist from Manhattan, said, “It's so cold in winter that we tend to stay indoors wrapped in blankets, but it's so exciting to see once-in-a-lifetime flowers blooming right now.'' She added that the days leading up to the inflorescences felt like “waiting to be a grandma.”
Jackson has been checking Instagram every day for the latest information since last week, when the orchard announced it was close to blooming. “I've only seen stories about corpse flowers on TV and online, so being able to see and smell them in person is a really exciting opportunity,” she said.
In 2018, the zoo acquired Giga, which was about 1 to 2 years old, from a nursery in Malaysia. Now at 8 or 9, this is the first inflorescence. Most years it only produces leaves.
Sprindis explained that the plant stores energy for years in underground corms, or storage organs. “When it gets big enough, it uses stored energy to bloom,” he says. “So, it's not something you can do all the time.” Eventually, the flowers collapse and become dormant, at which point you can't see anything above the soil.
Andrew Orner visited the garden on Friday with his friend and fellow product manager Matt Gorman. The owner described the smell as “salty, dead fish.” But he was still glad he got to experience it. “There aren’t that many olfactory experiences,” he continues, and Gorman jumps to “intentional olfactory experiences.”
In 2018, Amorphophallus titanum, a related species of gigas, bloomed at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The event also caused excitement, with New Yorkers lining up to smell the stench as well. Sprindis said many people who visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden mistake giga for titanium, but giga is taller and much rarer.
According to the PlantSearch database of the International Organization for the Conservation of Botanic Gardens, an organization representing botanical gardens, the giga is found in only 10 botanical gardens around the world. Titanium can be found in 94. It is not easy to obtain Gigas in the wild. It is native to Sumatra, Indonesia, and is designated as a protected species.
Experiencing the bloom was a personal milestone for Sprindis, who has been working at the Brooklyn garden since 2021. “I had never even seen this factory before I started working here,” he said. “So just seeing it was exciting, but being able to grow it myself when it blooms for the first time is even more special.”
Arajita Singh and Allegra Lovejoy, graduates of Yale School of the Environment, were among the first to experience the gigas in full bloom. “This is special because I knew a lot about this plant, but only in a textbook way,” Singh said.
Lovejoy, who works for the environmental nonprofit Center for Global Ethics, was encouraged by the crowd. “With such an urbanized and digitalized population, it's really great that people are excited about the factory and make the effort to come here,” she said.
