After a two-year hiatus, SF’s Conservatory of Flowers will smell like rotting flesh when one of its resident corpse flowers, Chanel, blooms later this month.
We’ve already covered the giant, towering asparagus in Hayes Valley — but there’s even more flora news to share. On Tuesday, July 1st, the Conservatory of Flowers shared its expecting a rare bloom of its massive corpse flower. Should it bloom, the beloved greenhouse will exude putrid aromas for the first time in years.
“We’re counting down the days for ‘Chanel’ the Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) to bloom,” reads a post on Instagram by the greenhouse. “We predict that Chanel could bloom as soon as within a week.”
There are currently six corpse flowers in San Francisco — Scarlet, Chanel, Amor, Summa, and Terra are at the Conservatory, while Mirage remains at Cal Academy after being gifted in 2017 — each of which represent the largest unbranched inflorescence species in the plant kingdom; typically reaching over seven feet tall, some of which have been reported at fifteen feet tall, these Indonseisan plants possess the largest single leaf of any plant species; unlike the tall agave plant mentioned previously, corpse flowers can bloom multiple times throughout their lifetime.
But that doesn’t mean their blooms are common. They spend “years in dormancy” and usually bloom once or twice in ten years. And when they do decide to show their terracotta reds and fill the rooms with pungent smells — odors meant to attract certain pollinators, like certain species of flies and bees — expect those blooms to last just a few days.
“This rare, spectacular bloom will only last for 2 days, and on the first evening, Chanel will release a strong and pungent smell often compared to rotten flesh to attract pollinators,” continues the Instagram post.
Mirage, the resident corpse flower at Cal Academy, bloomed in early 2024.
For those who can’t see Chanel bloom IRL, the museum has set up a livestream at gggp.org/corpseflower.
