Corpse Flower @ Foster Botanical Garden - 04/12/2014

I saw the news about the corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) blooming at Foster Botanical Garden and took the chance to see and smell it. Parking wasn't too bad as I got there around 3pm and they extended the hours at the garden to 5pm that day. In just a few hours you can really tell the difference.   It was really amazing.  The only disappointment was that the flower didn't really smell as bad as I'd thought.  I got this photo below from my nephew who got there earlier in the afternoon.

This is what I saw when I first arrived.

By late afternoon, I check it again and it had opened and you can see the inside of the flower.

I decided to go and check this out again on Sunday morning around 9am and the flower had opened wide. I noticed they cut a large hole on the side of the flower.

from the hole, you can see the flower buds at the bottom of the flower center.

Here's the inside of the flower.  I couldn't smell the stench.  It didn't smell nice, but kind of a musty dull smell but wasn't really 'bad'.

They have another bulb growing on the side.  The guide said they are fortunate that they have enough plants so there's been one blossom a year. He also said that this plant is in the same family as the konnyaku plant. 

The plant can go thru two cycles, one cycle would become a tree like plant.  Then after it absorbs all the nutrients from the leaves, it will collapse and then go thru another cycle that can result in a blossom again.  I can't believe this tree was a flower blossom. 

Just to show how large the flower was..here are people in front of me in line.

There was quite a crowd on Saturday afternoon ready to take a whiff. Luckily the line moved at a steady pace. I was glad to see the flower, but I guess too bad it didn't smell..