Corpse Flower Diaries #100DaysOfSummer

By notoriouslysinglegirl, July 14, 2026

From my rotting body flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity. -Edvard Munch

In the evening of July 12, 2026, I was doom scrolling through TikTok and scrolled onto a live TikTok of the Corpse Flower blooming at the Huntington Library& Botanical Gardens in Pasadena.

“It’s starting to bloom” gushed the horticulturist tending to the Corpse Flower.

The horticulturist reminded me of “Seymour,” the dentist who started feeding his plant blood in ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’

A rare occurrence

The Corpse Flower, Titan Arum ( Amorphophalus Titanum) only blooms every 3-7 years. On July 13, 2026, the flower was finally in full bloom at the Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens in Pasadena.

Since I was only 15 minutes away from where the Corpse Flower was making its rare appearance, I decided to take the day off and check it out.

Rare & Endangered

The Corpse flower is a rare and endangered plant from Sumatra. Famous for having an unbranched flower structure, the corpse flower gets its name from having an odor of rotting flesh to attract pollinators like carrion beetles and flies.

The stench is described to be like rotting meat, cheese or fish. However, the security guard checking bags at the door of The Huntington Library, who had a south London accent, said “it smells like dirty rotten sweat socks!”

The Mom from Atlanta

I got to the museum around 11am. The parking lot was full. As I was walking into the Huntington I heard a woman in back of me say “Why are there so many people here?”

The woman’s son assured of that it was because of summer vacation tourist crowds. Of course, I turned around and inserted myself into their conversation “The Corpse Flower is in full bloom today. It only blooms for 24-48 hours.”

The mom from Atlanta in a southern drawl equivalent to Liz Taylor in a ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” repeated “Corpse flower? My oh my!”

Sold Out

As I got to the counter to pay my general admission fee of $29.00, some guy announced that the event was now “sold out” for the day. Thankfully, the lady at the counter sold me a ticket to a 3 hour wait to see the Corpse Flower bloom.

I kinda felt like Gilligan in the show “Gilligan’s Island” on a 3 hour tour to an island on some movie set in Hollywood. I hate lines but here I was following to crowd to catch a Whig of a once in a lifetime event.

I suddenly saw my friend James heading away from the line. He came up to me and whispered in my ear “Go through the children’s garden. It leads to the main greenhouse. You can’t smell it anyway since it only blooms at night. Be careful for the old woman security guard. She’ll kick you out.”

I pondered wether I should takes Jame’s advice and cut through the line like he did. However, I decided to stay in the main line with the other people who I had already started having conversations with.

Friends in line

There was a goth chick in line who called in sick to work and dragged her 2 teenage sons with her to see the Corpse Flower. “I missed the one blooming in Arizona a few years ago. My boys were little. So, today I called in sick to work and bought tickets online last night.”

Another line friend drove all the way from Ventura. “I was watching the live on YouTube last night. my car is broken so I borrowed my dad’s car. I’m an environmental science major in college so I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”

My line friend from Ventura enlightened me about the ginormous Magnolia trees. “The Beatles pollen are the large magnolia flowers.”

I then told him the story of Carl young and the beetle scarab. How a hypnosis patient of his started telling him a story of a scarab beetle. Suddenly he here’s a tapping at the window and opens it up to find a scarab beetle flying into the room.

I started to laugh after I told the story because right above me was a beetle pollinating a white magnolia flower. “That’s called synchronicity “ I said.

Almost there

Surprisingly, the two hour line moved rather quickly. And we were “almost there.”

Odora & Odorysseus

Meeting Odora & Odorysseus was pretty exciting. Kinda like meeting plant royalty. I’m sure the plants knew they were VIP’s. Of course, it’s Hollywood Land. Even a plant can be made into a celebrity.

Being a nurse for 30 years, I’ve smelled lots of putrid smells. Pseudomonas, gangrene, and putrid gastric vomit. However, the smell of the Corose flower couple was faint.

Unlike the security guard with the south London accent description of dirty smelly socks, I thought the duo smelled like bad Italian cheese. I’m Italian and once worked in an Italian bakery and deli. I know what bad cheese smells like. The odor was faint and I could barely smell it because the Corpse flowers bloom and smells are worst at night.

Was it worth it

Yes it was. Carpe Diem. Seize the day and take the day off to watch a Corpse flowers bloom Blume. Or take the day off this summer. Call in sick to do something outrageous. You only live once.