Rare Corpse Flower To Be In Full Bloom No one has been murdered on the Virginia Tech campus. But if you happen to be walking near the Tech University Greenhouse complex, you might be excused for thinking it. The world’s smelliest plant, commonly known as the Corpse Flower, is blooming on the Tech campus this week.

It’s not easy to overlook, standing just over five feet tall, and in full bloom can reach three to four feet in diameter. The Amorphophallus titanium flower on campus is expected to begin blooming late Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning, taking up to eight hours to completely unfold a bell-shaped assemblage of petals that look like one unit.

The Corpse Flower, Titan arum, earned that nickname from the unique smell it emits while in bloom. Some observers have compared the odor to road kill, while chemistry majors or those who know how it emits the smell, would attribute it to the sulfur compound emitted during bloom.

This odor is intended to attract insect pollinators such as carrion beetles found in the flower’s native home of the island Sumatran in Indonesia. These insects usually lay their eggs in rotting flesh, so the odor and color of the flower’s petals tricks them into pollinating the male Titan arum.

The flower is extremely rare in both the wild and in botanical gardens around the world. Since its discovery in the Indonesian jungle in 1878 and subsequent cultivation in London in 1889, only a few dozen of the flowers have been grown in captivity. Their large size, relative rarity and long life cycle all contribute to the difficulty and costliness of their cultivation.

The world’s largest Titan arum, located in Stuttgart, Germany, reached a height of over nine feet during its last bloom in 2005. While Tech’s flower doesn’t reach that gargantuan height, it still draws attention.

At Greenhouse F-05 of the Department of Horticulture, crowds have been massing to view and smell this extraordinary flower as it nears full bloom.

According to Debbie Wiley-Vawter, Biological Curator of the department, an average of thirty people a day have visited the plant so far, and that number is expected to rise during the bloom.

“It really is a fascinating plant with incredible colors,” said Wiley-Vawter. Wiley-Vawter is anxious for the flower to reach full bloom, and plans to personally pollinate the other Titan arum hosted at Virginia Tech by retrieving eggs from the active flower, thus manually performing the act done in nature by the insects of Indonesia, its native home.

As only two Titan arum lilies exist in the entire state of Virginia — both here at Tech — Wiley-Vawter is eager to ensure that the species survives at Virginia Tech and in the Commonwealth at large.

Virginia Tech last saw a Titan arum blossom two years ago, when the Horticulture Department’s other Corpse Flower bloomed to large crowds eager to catch a glimpse and a sniff of the massive flower.

Curious onlookers eager to catch a glimpse of this year’s fleeting flower run the gamut from students to professors and Blacksburg inhabitants, even local media eager to get a story that only comes around rarely.

One Tech student who recently visited the flower was taken aback by its beauty. Josh Salinger, a political science major at Virginia Tech, understands the significance of this rare occurrence. “I find it so strange that something so beautiful can produce such an unpleasant scent,” said Salinger.

Also visiting the flower was Joe Robillard, a management student at Virginia Tech. “It’s funny that not many people know about this flower being here when it will only be active for a short period of time,” says Robillard.

The greenhouse hosting the flower will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the week, but is expected to hold longer hours during the full bloom.