Oh my goodness! Whenever I see anything about a corpse flower, I am automatically intrigued.

One bloomed recently at the Vancouver campus of Washington State University.

The plant is appropriately known as Titan VanCoug. Over the past weekend, visitors were shocked to see the plant had produced a five-foot, five-inch tall bloom! Since 2019, this is the fourth time the plant has bloomed. That's pretty miraculous because, usually, corpse flowers are on a schedule of four to 6 years between blooms. I wonder what kind of plant food they're using.

What exactly is a corpse flower?

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The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is an extremely rare and endangered flowering plant native to the rainforests of Sumatra. The corpse flower releases a very strong odor when it blooms. The smell is described as similar to rotting meat. The plant also generates heat, raising its scent high into trees, increasing its chances of pollination. According to Wikipedia:

In cultivation, the titan arum generally requires 5 through 10 years of vegetative growth before blooming for the first time. After a plant's initial blooming, there can be considerable variation in its blooming frequency. The cultivation conditions are known in detail. Some plants may not bloom again for another 7 through 10 years while others may bloom every two or three years.

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There are only a few dozen of these plants growing at locations in the U.S.

The U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington DC has several mature corpse flower plants in their collection and are expecting multiple corpse flower blooms per year. You can visit for FREE. NO tickets are required. Learn what makes the corpse flower plant so special below. (Courtesy of United States Botanic Garden)

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