The long-awaited Huntington's stench has arrived. Two corpse flowers, nicknamed Odora and Odorysseus, have bloomed in the San Marino greenhouse, attracting thousands of people on rare occasions and quickly surpassing last year's numbers.
Corpse flowers have been a Huntington staple since 1999, when the garden displayed its first corpse flower. Native to Sumatra, Indonesia, these plants are endangered in the wild and only bloom for 24 to 48 hours every few years. Once flowered, they stink of rotting meat.
As the day progresses, these smelly specimens will close up again and collapse, losing their infamous rotten smell.
This summer's double bloom was “definitely a surprise,” said Brandon Tam, associate curator of orchids at the Huntington. The last time multiple corpse flowers bloomed on the same day in Huntington was in 2018.
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“We knew Odoriseo would probably bloom on Sunday,” Tam said. “But what surprised us was that we saw Odora open just a few hours later.”
As an “inflorescence” (a plant structure containing hundreds of male and female flowers at the base), the plant usually staggers its flowering to avoid self-pollination.
A developmental irregularity caused Odora's spadix to sink, but the plant remains healthy, said Brandon Tam, associate curator of orchids at Huntington.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Jaime Holmes of San Gabriel covers his nose in front of the corpse flowers in bloom.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
But sometimes, “these plants have a mind of their own,” Tam said.
Climatic factors can influence the timing of flowering. Tam said Southern California's recent high humidity may have signaled a prime environment for plants to develop.
Visitors may have noticed that Odoriseus' spadix (the conical protuberance that emerges upward from the plant) was much taller than that of Odora, which had sunk. Tam said the Odora spadix was a developmental irregularity, but emphasized that the plant remains healthy.
“He just looks a little different, completely normal,” Tam said. “When it blooms again in three or four years, it will look perfectly fine.”
At the time of flowering, Odoriseo was 71 inches tall and Odora was 41.
As of 8:51 a.m., the Huntington had recorded more than 5,700 reservations, said Keisha Raines, assistant director of news and media relations at the Huntington. That number easily surpassed last year's bloom, which attracted about 4,900 visitors. It also excludes walk-ins and any other reservations made during the day.
Parking lots filled up quickly inside the Huntington, forcing some visitors to park on the streets outside.
Raines believes that the rare double flowering influenced the increase in reserves. He also believes that general awareness of the corpse flower increases each summer.
“It's kind of a tradition,” Raines said. “It keeps growing and more people want to see it.”
Inside the greenhouse, eager sniffers took selfies and marveled at the size and smell of the plants. Outside, the line ran down all the hallways and extended beyond the exit.
Ventura resident Michelle Shock and her 8-year-old daughter, Fable, initially came to the Huntington for a tea party in the Rose Garden and dressed the part in light-colored semi-formal dresses. They scheduled the party two weeks ago and got lucky when they heard that the corpse flowers were blooming that same day.
“I always wanted to see one,” Shock said while waiting in line. “I think the last time I heard about a bloom was when I was pregnant with it. We were in the bay and I missed it. So here we are now, together, which is better.”
Gastonia Goodman, 72, looks out the window at the corpse flowers in bloom.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Fable predicted that the plants would smell like “rotten Minecraft meat.” The shock meant they would smell like forgotten meat in a broken freezer or animal remains on a farm.
For wives Jennifer Kraus and Abigail Cruz, the plants smelled like rotting garbage.
“He was pretty mature,” Kraus said. “I totally enjoyed it though.”
The couple drove two hours from the Inland Empire to see the flower, which had been on Cruz's wish list.
“The moment we saw it on Facebook, [Kraus] We started following it and making sure we were here when it bloomed,” Cruz said.
They were among the first to arrive, so the wait was short. “We were here at 30 p.m. this morning, ready to go,” Kraus said.
North Hollywood resident Lilla Saito took two hours off work to witness the corpse flowers for the first time and followed the livestream every day, “just waiting for it to bloom.” Saito stood in line for about 45 minutes to smell it, which, according to Saito, “smelled like a garbage room.”
It was also Paige Patino's first bloom. Patiño lives 10 minutes from Huntington and for the occasion he wore a t-shirt with flowers. It was “really cool” “to see them both active,” Patiño said.
For Tam, this year's stink ranks in the top three. He believes each individual plant stinks more than the previous flowers, but other than that, he said, “The fact that we have two in bloom makes it stinker more.”
