A rare, stinky moment: a bloom is coming for a corpse flower

A corpse rose is getting ready to bloom at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul.

The flower, which emits a pungent odor said to smell like rotting flesh during its short bloom, is named Fredrick and is the sibling corpse flower to Horace, who bloomed last year in May.

Fredrick is 71 inches tall as of Wednesday morning, but the rate of growth is slowing, which the conservatory says is one of the key indicators that the bloom will happen soon.

If you want to see Fredrick up close, the conservatory is open from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. daily, or if you don’t want to smell the flower yourself, you can watch a live streaming camera.

Corpse flowers give off the intense smell to attract pollinators in nature, which include carrion beetles and flies.

“Frederick may smell terrible when he blooms, but he’s doing something wonderful by getting people excited about plants and conservation,” said Erica Prosser, Director of Como Park Zoo & Conservatory. “It’s rare, it’s fascinating, it’s science in action, and it’s a perfect reminder of how amazing and fragile our natural world really is.”

Fredrick and Horace were both grown from seeds and donated to the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory from the Greater Des Moines Botanic Garden in 2017.

Fredrick is 8 years old, and this is the flower’s first bloom. Horace was 7 when it bloomed last year.

Corpse flowers are native to rainforests on Sumatra, an Indonesian island, and are considered endangered due to habitat loss, which is primarily from unsustainable palm oil production.

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