Those looking to see Chanel’s IRL terracotta-colored bloom will only have a few days to do so before it withers away.
Whenever a corpse flower blooms, be it in San Francisco or elsewhere in the country, the event makes for widely popular news. Bay Area folks are fortunate to have enough resident corpse flowers — San Francisco alone has six Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) examples — that blooms happen every two or three years.
Waiting a thousand days for a natural event that only lasts for about 48 hrs is a rare phenomenon … and one that usually attracts tens of thousands to San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers. And with the recent blooming of Chanel, one of the greenhouse’s cultivated corpse flowers, long lines are expected to wrap the place for the next few days.
“Chanel is Blooming,” reads a post on Instagram by the beloved San Francisco greenhouse, alerting the public about the rare bloom in progress. “Our lovely Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum), Chanel, is officially blooming!”
Like all corpse blooms, the Conservatory reiterated that this “rare bloom” will only last a few days; the two-day bloom produces its strongest rotting-flesh smells, hence the flower’s name, on the first night — “ that’s TONIGHT!”
To accommodate the bloom’s nocturnal nature, the Conservatory is offering special late-night access to the bloom from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. today, July 8th, and tomorrow, July 9th; the Conservatory will also be open during its regular daytime hours from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the bloom’s days-long expectancy; members of the iconoclastic greenhouse can get in an hour early for special, uncrowded access from 11 a.m. to noon, this upcoming Wednesday and Thursday, while the flower is blooming.
Not a fan of aromas reminiscent of roadside kills, or unable to make it out to Golden Gate Park these next few days? The greenhouse’s livestream of the flower is up and running — free of charge.
Feature image: Courtesy of Instagram
