So what’s the corpse flower at UC Botanical Garden smell like anyway?
“Well, I’d say it smells like dirty gym socks wrapped around a rotten steak,” said Jonathan Goodrich, an associate director at the garden. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty descriptive.”
This year’s flower, named Maladora, blooms once every eight to 10 years or so, making today’s bloom a special event. After blossoming last night, Maladora will bloom through most of today but the eau d’ ‘dora will be mostly gone by Friday.
In their native Sumatra, the plants, scientific name Amorphophallus titanium, can grow to 12 to 20 feet tall. But Maladora, not used to Berkeley’s cooler climate, is only about 4 feet tall. It’s sister flower, Trudy, bloomed in 2015.
Maladora isn’t actually a single flower, but a collection of tiny male and female flowers that slowly grow around a central protuberance.
“It shoots up a leaf and collects energy and then the leaf dies, then later it shoots up another leaf and collects energy and then that leaf dies, and eventually when it stores up enough energy it blooms,” Goodrich said.