The sweet smell of rotting flesh is wafting through Wheaton College’s greenhouse, as the school’s corpse flower bloomed Saturday night for the first time in nearly a decade.
The massive flower, nicknamed “Whiff,” peaked Saturday evening. The flower’s progress is being streamed live on YouTube — although home-viewers, for better or worse, are missing its signature scent.
Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, blooms only once every few years and is known for its strong stink, similar to decaying flesh. The rotten smell attracts pollinators including flesh flies, dung beetles, and other carnivorous insects.
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Wheaton’s plant is about eight years old, and this weekend was the first time it had ever bloomed, said greenhouse horticulturalist Ben Robbins. The rare bloom typically only lasts a few days, he said.
“This whole process is really quick,” he said. “It really is amazing that this plant waits so long to flower, and then the whole process is done within two to three days. And then the whole thing starts over again.”
Robbins said he realized the flower was soon to bloom about two weeks earlier, when the stalk began to grow bulbous and the red-purple tip of the spadix — the tall, hollow structure protruding from the flower’s center — started to peek out.
Robbins said interest in seeing the plant up-close “snowballed” as word spread. The crowds, he said, seemed fueled by “morbid curiosity.”
“It’s kind of a sight to behold, just because of the size of the flower,” Robbins said.
The plant is native to the Sumatra region of Indonesia, where it can grow as tall as 12 feet, according to the United States Botanical Garden. It does not have a regular blooming cycle, and time between blooms can range from several years to more than a decade.
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Wheaton’s is about 6 feet 5 inches tall, but it continues to grow — as much as an inch each day, he said. The underground bulb alone weighs between 40 and 50 pounds, he added.
By midafternoon Sunday, the towering flower had opened just enough for insects to crawl inside. While Robbins said he hoped to see it open wider, that tiny crack is all that is needed for pollination to occur. In that sense, he said, the flower could be considered fully open.
“It’s just a waiting game at this point,” Robbins said. “But I’ll keep an eye on it all through today, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Mature corpse flowers can smell “almost nauseating,” he said, but the college’s relatively young flower gave off a gentler aroma over the weekend.
The flower’s smell, which could be described as somewhere between trash heating up in the sun and decaying wildlife, drifted through the stairwell and the elevators leading to the fourth-floor greenhouse, guiding visitors who sniffed as they approached Sunday afternoon.
Just outside the greenhouse, more than a dozen people stood in line — some already showing signs of disgust.
Toward the front of the line, two children had pulled their shirts over their noses and mouths, groaning and shaking their heads.
Sandy Coleman, Wheaton’s director of communications, said she counted more than 300 visitors over the weekend, with about 100 of them arriving Saturday, when the blooming began.
Phyllis Clark drove about an hour from Saugus to see the flower Sunday afternoon. She said had heard of the plant but never found an opportunity to see one. The greenhouse also has two younger corpse flowers, around three and six years old, both grown from seeds.
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“It’s kind of been on my bucket list,” said Clark, 61. “I love all this stuff.”
Clark said the flower smelled similar to a “mild low-tide,” although she had “kind of wanted more of the rotting flesh smell.”
Still, Clark said, it was well worth the trip, and she is looking forward to returning if either of the college’s other corpse flowers bloom.
Attleboro resident Ellen Downing also said she also expected a stronger scent as she leaned in for a photo next to it.
“I didn’t find it too offensive at all,” Downing said.
For updates on the flower and visiting times, check the greenhouse’s website or Instagram.
Daniel Kool can be reached at daniel.kool@globe.com. Follow him @dekool01.