June 5, 2010 update: IT’S BLOOMING!!!!!!!! From the Hunt­ing­ton website:

Botan­i­cal staff noticed that the petal-​like outer spathe was begin­ning to pull away from the tall spadix at around 2 p.m. Fri­day after­noon. But flies had already begun to appear, clearly sens­ing some­thing in the air. The bloom takes approx­i­mately 7 hours to open fully. The odor is at its strongest dur­ing the first 12 hours or so, when the plant is recep­tive to pollination.

Pub­lic hours at The Hunt­ing­ton are from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Extended evening hours will be offered for Hunt­ing­ton Mem­bers Fri­day and Sat­ur­day night, from 5 to 7:30 p.m.

It’s baaack…the gigan­tic Amor­phophal­lus Titan­tum, aka the Corpse Flower, aka Stinky, is get­ting ready to bloom again at The Hunt­ing­ton. The fol­low­ing sum­ma­rizes a detailed and beau­ti­fully pho­tographed post on The Hunt­ing­ton web site (www​.Hunt​ing​ton​.org/) about this rar­ity. The Corpse Flower is named for an excep­tion­ally foul odor emit­ted by Amor­phophal­lus Titan­tum when it blooms. The Hunt­ing­ton had the first bloom in Cal­i­for­nia in 1999. Botanists there were sub­se­quently able to har­vest 10 seeds from which sev­eral seedlings were pro­duced. The cur­rent plant is being tracked daily, with the cur­rent height at about 40″ and an esti­mated bloom date of June 5 thru the 10th.

So, to go or not to go? This year I’ll bat­tle the crowds and go — who knows when I’ll get another chance? Besides, I have to report to my read­ers: How stinky is it???

In case you are not famil­iar with The Hunt­ing­ton Library and Art Col­lec­tions and Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, this “embar­rass­ment of riches” is located in San Marino just out­side of Los Ange­les. A pri­vate, non­profit insti­tu­tion, The Hunt­ing­ton was founded in 1919 by Henry E. Hunt­ing­ton, an excep­tional busi­ness­man who built a finan­cial empire that included rail­road com­pa­nies, util­i­ties, and real estate hold­ings in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. This must-​see SoCal attrac­tion has so many superla­tives in its art gal­leries, library and gar­dens it just has to be experienced.

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