Hold Your Breath! 2 More Corpse Flowers Are About To Bloom At The Huntington

This week, the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino is inviting plant enthusiasts to “ooh” and “ahh” — and maybe gag — at two giant corpse flowers when they bloom.

The pair of Amorphophallus titanums are roughly six feet tall, and named after two iconic paintings in The Huntington Library's collection, The Blue Boy and Pinkie.

“We decided to call [the flowers] Green Boy and Stinkie,” said Brandon Tam, the organization’s Orchid Collection Specialist.

Green Boy and Stinkie are descendants from a past corpse flower that lived at the Library in 2002. Tam expects them to begin blooming one evening this week.

"It's strongest at night because these pollinators will only come out at night,” he said, referring to "flesh flies, sweat bees, [and] carrion beetles."

That's right, carrion beetles. They like the flower because it smells like rotting flesh.

So what's our excuse? Tam think's it's a spectacle. It takes a decade for an Amorphophallus titanum to flower for the first time, and then its bloom — and odor — only lasts 36 hours.

"It almost smells like a dead rat in an attic," Tam said.

Don't miss out.

Watch a live stream of the bloom: