Rare, smelly ‘corpse flower’ set to bloom at Nashville Zoo

NASHVILLE — When it blooms, you’ll know.

A corpse flower at the Nashville Zoo is set to bloom. The smelly but visually vibrant and extremely rare spectacle occurs sporadically taking up to a decade to bloom in some cases and only lasting a couple of days.

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“It hasn’t opened yet, but it will be beautiful and a bold red,” Nick Hanna, from the Nashville Zoo, told WSMV.

The amorphophallus titanum is considered one of the largest flowers in the world. The odor from the bloom of the nearly 10-foot plant smells like rotting flesh, giving it its common name, the corpse flower.

The zoo is broadcasting a livestream of the bloom.

The plant has a sporadic bloom cycle. A flower emerges from a large underground stem called a corm. This only happens when enough energy is built up, which can take several years to more than a decade, according to the U.S. Botanic Garden.

This is not the only corpse flower to bloom this year in the U.S.

Two corpse flowers at the U.S. Botanic Garden bloomed in September. Those flowers were 8 and 4 years old.

Cox Media Group