Looking for an extraordinary spectacle to take part in this weekend? Go see the elusive African Corpse Flower at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, a species known for its potent smell, which is having its first bloom since 2020.
The plant species, Aristolochia goldieana, is native to Central Africa and found in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. In a 2020 news release, the garden said the flower is “shaped like a saxophone with a mottled purple to reddish throat.” Its name comes from the smell it emits to attract pollinating flies, which is often compared to rotting flesh.
In Central Africa, the plant is threatened by habitat loss.
The African Corpse Flower has only bloomed once in its time at the botanical garden and this time, there are four blooms of the unmistakable plant.
Atlanta Botanical Garden horticulturist Derek Pinson told the AJC that he found the corpse flower “having detected its stench first.”
According to Pinson, the garden only knows of seven blooming events of the species since the first-recorded bloom in 1922.
“Experiencing this plant in bloom may well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for visitors,” Pinson told the AJC. “We have four flowers developing in succession rather than just one, giving those interested a little more precious time to come and see, and smell, this botanical wonder.”
These flowers are often confused for the Titan Arum flower, which has also bloomed at the Atlanta Botanical Garden and has a similar stench. But the African Corpse Flower is much more rare.
The flower was planted in 2018 by Paul Blackmore, who managed the garden’s Fuqua Conservatory.
“The fact that this rare and remarkable plant has bloomed at the Atlanta Botanical Garden is testimony to our professional horticulturists and curators,” said Mary Pat Matheson, the parden’s president and CEO, in the news release. “They have a depth of knowledge about plants that is incomparable.”
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