Big Stinker Blooms Again
June 14th, 2016
Romero, likely the stinkiest plant in Pennsylvania, must have enjoyed the attention he got 3 years ago. He just bloomed again last week in an encore performance to his 2013 stinking in front of another stench-enjoying audience.
George and his little grandsweetie taking a whiff of Phipps’ Romero.
Romero is the name of the corpse flower that makes his home inside Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory.
The specimen is a fairly rare Indonesian native plant that usually blooms only once every 6 or so years and for only a day or less even then.
The whole thing can reach upward nearly 8 feet by the time the central cylinder shoots out from the middle of the 3- to 4-foot-tall vase-shaped flower.
But what really sets it apart is the awful smell. To attract the beetles and flies that pollinate it, the corpse flower produces an odor said to simulate rotting flesh.
That’s the part that draws hordes of people whenever one is blooming in a public place.
True to form, thousands of stink-seekers visited Phipps last Wednesday into Thursday when the flower opened. Tens of thousands more followed the happening online. Phipps even stayed open until 2 a.m. to accommodate people wishing to smell and see the weird thing in the middle of the night.
I wasn’t there at 2 a.m., but I admit I did pay a visit – in the name of research.
Actually and coincidentally, I was visiting family in Pittsburgh, so I popped over to show my granddaughter the “big, stinky flower.”
Romero was wilting by then, but the smell was apparent soon after entering the conservatory’s Palm Court – front and center first thing when you enter.
Romero in peak, erect, and full-odor form.
Credit: Phipps Conservatory
To me, it smelled more like a full garbage can that had been sitting in the sun for a couple of weeks.
One whiff is enough for me. Next time Romero or any of his Amorphophallus titanum brethren bloom, I don’t need additional research. I see why a beetle or fly might be interested, though.
Last time Romero bloomed at Phipps in 2013, he went dormant for 8 months and then got busy producing leaves that recharged his underground corm from 37 to 67 pounds. That was big enough to induce a new bloom in just 3 years.
Phipps made the most of this latest appearance with You Tube videos, lots of social-media-ing, and even the sale of purple Romero T-shirts. (No, I didn’t buy one of those.)
Phipps staff also reports a ton of people took “smellfies” and shared that artwork and their comments on Twitter.
As for Romero, he’s headed for another multi-month snooze. And we can go back to smelling more pleasant roses and lilies.