HANOVER — Morphy, Dartmouth’s 23-year-old Amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, began blooming on Sunday morning, peaking on Sunday evening and continuing to close up through Tuesday. The event marked the plant’s sixth bloom during its time at the Life Sciences Greenhouse.
Amorphophallus titanum are native to the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, though Dartmouth biology professor Eric Schaller said there are likely more of the plants in greenhouses around the world than there are in the wild.
Corpse flowers are nicknamed for the stench they emit, which mimics the smell of rotting flesh in order to attract pollinators like flies and carrion beetles. The bloom, which can reach around eight feet tall, generates heat in order to send its scent farther.
“The rank odor had a different quality to what we had seen before,” Schaller said of this year’s bloom. The smell of rot had a sickly-sweet quality that, while unsettling to greenhouse employees, was particularly attractive to flies.
The plant’s cycle of leafing and flowering can be unpredictable. It can take several years for an individual to reach a mature stage where flowering is possible, and once that occurs it only flowers after storing enough energy in its leaf phase. Morphy is currently on a cycle of about two years between blooms.
“The flower generally does not last that long, and that’s why they’re fairly popular visitation sites,” Schaller said. “If you like to visit things that smell like dead animals.”
A second, smaller corpse flower in the greenhouse is set to bloom in the coming weeks.
The Dartmouth Life Sciences Greenhouse is open to everyone during public hours: Tuesday, 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. and Friday, 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
