Day One: Thursday, July 21, 2016
10:37 A.M.
I learn of the impending bloom of a corpse flower at the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx. “These things are basically the horticultural equivalent of pandas,” my editor writes. People go nuts for them.
Preliminary research. The corpse flower is native to Sumatra. It typically blooms for one to two days every ten years, and smells like rotting meat.
3:20 P.M.
During a session with my therapist, I mention that I am considering an assignment to cover the corpse flower. My therapist has not heard of the corpse flower. We discuss its peculiarities. The mature corpse flower reaches a height of six to eight feet in captivity, ten to twelve feet in the wild.
A corpse flower has not bloomed in New York City since 2006, and the last bloom before that was in 1939.
“Is that why it’s called a corpse flower?” my therapist asks.
I wonder if this is a reference to the Holocaust.
My therapist remarks that he is reminded of a previous assignment that I had talked about. “Something with some insects that live in dung?”
“The dung beetles!” I recall.
We reminisce about this assignment, which involved a plant with seeds that smell like dung. Dung beetles are tricked into pushing these seeds for great distances across the savanna. We briefly discuss what it is that causes me to receive such assignments, and what impels me to accept them.
10:15 P.M.
More research. In 1939, the corpse flower was named the official flower of the Bronx. It held this status until 2000, when Bronx officials, seeking to address what the Times called the borough’s “image problems,” opted to replace it with the day lily.
It turns out that my old friends the dung beetles, along with flesh flies and other carrion-loving insects, comprise the corpse flower’s primary pollinators. Attracted by the corpselike smell, they crawl into the flower, find no carrion, and get stuck in gooey pollen, which they carry out with them and spread throughout the world.
The Latin name of the corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum, means “giant misshapen phallus.” I wonder whether this information might be of interest to my therapist.
Day Two: Friday, July 22, 2016
12:34 P.M.
I decide to write about the corpse flower.
1:06 P.M.
The corpse flower’s publicist says that the exact time of the bloom is unknown, and advises me to monitor the corpse flower’s live Webcam.
Like the calla lily, to which it is related, the corpse flower consists of a baguette-shaped structure, the spadix, surrounded by a big petal-like skirt, known as the spathe. The corpse flower is technically not a single flower but an inflorescence—many small flowers on a single structure. The flowers themselves are very small, and densely cover the spadix.
The spadix and outer spathe are greenish. At the time of blooming, the spathe unfurls downward, revealing a meat-colored interior. At this point, the spathe is still hugging the spadix. It looks like an upside-down parasol.
When the corpse flower blooms, it will release some of the chemical compounds that are associated with the smell of decomposing flesh and other malodorous substances: the dimethyl trisulfide of Limburger cheese, the trimethylamine of rotting fish, the isovaleric acid of sweaty socks, and the indole of human feces. The tip of the spadix will exceed human body temperature, helping to disperse the odor. It takes a lot of energy to produce that much heat, which is why corpse flowers can’t bloom for very long.
Day Three: Saturday, July 23, 2016
3:00 P.M.
The temperature is nearing a hundred degrees. In Bed-Stuy, my friend L. and I refresh the corpse cam on our phones, wondering if and when we should head up to the Bronx. The spathe is still clinging to the spadix, but it looks slightly more bulbous and cabbagelike than it did yesterday.
The Webcam has about a hundred likes and a handful of dislikes. “What kind of person would dislike a corpse flower?” L. asks.
Day Four: Sunday, July 24, 2016
The bloom is due to start at any minute. The N.Y.B.G. is normally closed on Mondays, but will be open tomorrow. A craze is expected. In the past, people have waited three hours to see a corpse flower in Chicago, five hours in Denver.
The temperature is still in the nineties. L. and I go to “Ghostbusters” and sit in the back, periodically checking the corpse cam. The flower doesn’t bloom.
Day Five: Monday, July 25, 2016
1:25 A.M.
Corpse-cam statistics: 710 viewing, 320 likes, 31 dislikes.
1:12 P.M.
A woman appears on the Webcam, watering the corpse flower from a watering can. For the first time, I get a true sense of its stature. It stands on a sort of island, in a pool of water. The water goes almost up to the woman’s knees. If the corpse flower were a person, the woman’s head wouldn’t even reach its waist.
10:16 P.M.
I check the N.Y.B.G. Web site. “Update: After a weekend of anticipation, the high temperatures in New York did not impact the Corpse Flower’s growth as our experts anticipated. The plant is still progressing, but its bloom remains difficult to predict.”
Day Six: Tuesday, July 26, 2016
2:01 A.M.
Corpse-cam statistics: 659 viewing, 581 likes, 64 dislikes.
1:27 P.M.
Another corpse flower is about to bloom, in Washington, D.C. I learn this from an e-mail with the subject heading “It never rains but it corpse.”
2:04 P.M.
E.B. to L.: “Holy mother of God they’re in the capital.”
L. to E.B.: “Save the paintings first.”
3:30 P.M.
I’m texting with K., a millennial, about the corpse flower. “I can’t wait to see what metaphor you come up with,” she texts. When I explain the refusal of the corpse flower to bloom, K. suggests that I “get a young person to read to it.”
Day Seven: Wednesday, July 27, 2016
12:27 A.M.
E.B. to editor: “Why won’t it bloom? 92 dislikes.”
12:29 A.M.
Editor: “A watched corpse never blooms!”
2:59 P.M.
Toggling from the Amorphophallus Webcam to Twitter, I notice that Netflix has released a trailer for the “Gilmore Girls” revival. As a fan of the original show, I click on the link.
Lorelei: “Do you think Amy Schumer would like me?”
Rory: “No.”
Lorelei: “Why? It’s not like . . . I have that plant strapped to my back that blooms once every fifty years and smells disgusting.”
Rory: “What plant?”
Lorelei: “That plant, that plant. People line up to see it even though it smells like dead fish.”
Am I dreaming? Is it some kind of allegory? What is going on?
Day Eight: Thursday, July 28, 2016
12:29 A.M.
Corpse-cam stats: 1,684 viewing, 1K likes, 128 dislikes.
3:15 P.M.
I tell my therapist that the corpse flower still hasn’t bloomed. He says he read about it in the Times.
My therapist asks why there is only one corpse flower blooming in all of New York City. “Why didn’t they plant more?”
I can’t answer this question.
4:05 P.M.
I find a text from L.: “CORPSE FLOWER!!!” I check the Webcam. The spathe has separated from the spadix, like a frothy, frilled cape, just barely revealing its deep maroon interior. I wonder if I have time to make it to the Bronx before the N.Y.B.G. closes.
4:18 P.M.
On the 6 to Grand Central.
4:54 P.M.
Metro-North to Harlem.
5:22 P.M.
I arrive at the N.Y.B.G. There are three other people at the ticket booth. “I have to see if there are tickets left,” the ticket-seller, who has a white manicure, says. There is a moment of suspense.
She prints out a ticket.
I ask for directions to the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. On the way, I am overtaken by one of the garden’s docents. The docent is really excited; she heard about the bloom at four o’clock and rushed over from Bronxville. “We opened on Monday and it was a bust,” she says.
I ask why there aren’t more corpse flowers. “Well, they’re rare,” the docent says. She speaks knowledgeably about corms.
5:28 P.M.
I am standing in front of the corpse flower. It’s like seeing a celebrity. I feel exhilaration, disbelief. The red cape is unfurling. It’s beautiful.
5:35 P.M.
I send L. a photograph of the corpse flower. We wanted to see it together, but she had to catch a plane. “ ‘Next time,’ ” she texts, with a sad face.
I e-mail my therapist a photograph of the corpse flower, with the subject line “I made it.”
“Hallelujah,” he replies. “Does it smell as they threatened?”
Actually, it doesn’t. There is an occasional faint whiff of something rotten, but mostly it just smells like plants. Everyone is remarking on the lack of corpselike odor.
Garden personnel explain that the terrible smell won’t kick in until late at night, when the carrion-loving insects are out and about. The modest but growing number of flies around the corpse flower is monitored with excitement by the crowd.
5:37 P.M.
Telemundo is here with a TV crew. I make out a few phrases: “este momento magico,” and “la flor cadáver.”
“I don’t want it growing out of my head,” a man who is posing for a photograph says.
“It looks like the Alien,” another man remarks.
A woman is trying to explain the diagram of the life cycle of the corpse flower to a very small child. “Then it becomes this. Then it becomes this.” The child looks skeptical.
In general, children seem less than entranced by the corpse flower. “Daddy wants to take this one picture and then we can leave, O.K.?” a man says to a four- or five-year-old boy.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” the boy says.
A couple is debating whether they smell anything, and, if so, what it is that they smell.
5:43 P.M.
I come upon a visitor talking to a uniformed volunteer. Both men appear to be in their sixties.
Visitor: “I thought of a new name for the color of the inside. I call it royal magenta.”
Volunteer: “Royal magenta, huh?”
Visitor [after a lull]: “So, how long do you think the phallic part will stay stiff?”
Volunteer: “Well, until it falls over.”
Visitor [to E.B., who is giggling]: “Don’t laugh!”
Volunteer: “The phallic part is technically called a spike. S-P-I-K-E.”
The spike will fall after the spathe completely opens, sometime in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. It is remarked that, in humans, an erection lasting more than three hours is grounds to be taken to the emergency room. This is not the case for the corpse flower.
“I really wanted to see it decompose,” the visitor says wistfully.
5:55 P.M.
Marc Hachadourian, the director of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections, stands in a corner fielding questions from visitors and the press. Most of the questions are about when the corpse flower will start to smell like a corpse.
The Nolen Greenhouses have about ten corpse flowers. Three are on display now: the blooming one, which is almost ten years old, and two younger ones—about seven and five years old—which just look like leafy plants. They are there to show the other stages of development.
Every year, the corpse flower puts up a bud. Most years, a leafy stalk comes out of the bud. Every ten years or so, the flower comes out instead. Both bud types are conical, but the flower bud is less symmetrical than the leaf bud.
This year’s bud was declared a flower bud on Monday, July 18th. The twenty-two-inch-tall plant was transported from Nolen to the Haupt Conservatory for display. Since then, it has tripled in size, to six feet four inches.
Hachadourian knew a week and a half beforehand that the corpse flower was going to bloom, but he didn’t say anything: “If it didn’t flower, I knew this guy would never let me live it down.” He points at Todd Forrest, the Arthur Ross Vice-President for Horticulture and Living Collections. Forrest smiles, but doesn’t deny that he would never have let Hachadourian live it down.
Hachadourian was working at the N.Y.B.G. in 2007, when it acquired the seedling that is now blooming. I ask how much it cost. Hachadourian says it wasn’t that expensive. “But it’s incalculable the amount of worry that we put into it,” Forrest says.
M.H.: “It takes time.”
T.F.: “Most people don’t have the patience. Or the glasshouse you need to grow them in our climate.”
M.H.: “Or the desire to have a giant stinking plant.”
E.B.: “But people seem to love it.”
M.H.: “It’s an oddity.”
T.F.: “People love oddities.”
6:07 P.M.
“We’re waiting for the first pulse of smell,” Forrest says, explaining that this is how the corpse flower delivers its odor. You can be standing there and it can be O.K., and suddenly there’s a pulse and everyone is gagging.
Someone says they smell something.
“It isn’t me!” Hachadourian says.
Forrest and Hachadourian joke about possible sources of the smell.
6:10 P.M.
Hachadourian talks about what a relief it is now that the plant is blooming. Day after day, pessimists have been asking him, “What if it doesn’t open?”
E.B.: “Do they ever not open?”
M.H.: “Yes. There’s a story, but I won’t tell you. It was at another botanical garden.”
Visitor [shouting, to M.H.]: “You’re going to be bored when this is over!”
M.H. [to visitor]: “Do you know how far behind I am in the rest of my work because of this?”
Visitor: “Well enjoy it!”
M.H.: “Come back tomorrow. We open at nine.”
The hardest part of caring for a corpse flower is preventing it from rotting during its dormancy. Temperature, moisture, and the surrounding water level can cause rot to set in. Hachadourian says they once grew an Amorphophallus to the weight of fifty pounds, only for it to start to rot. “Ten years of hard work is not a guarantee that it’s going to happen,” he says.
6:12 P.M.
I ask about the corpse flower’s temperature. “If you were to touch it, it would probably feel like a person with a fever,” Hachadourian says.
“Now?”
“Well, it’s probably starting to heat up now.” He explains that heat helps both to disperse the fragrance and to simulate decomposition. “When things decompose, they generate heat. So basically you want to look like, you want to smell like—you want to, you know, look in terms of heat—like you’re rotting and decomposing.”
6:14 P.M.
Nobody can explain why there are so many corpse flowers blooming or about to bloom now on the East Coast. (In addition to the one in D.C., which is named Charlotte, there are two in Florida—Seymour and Audrey, named after the romantic leads in “The Little Shop of Horrors.”) Hachadourian says that the proliferation of blooms is not related to the hot weather.
Because the blooms are happening at around the same time, the gardens may be able to exchange pollen and get new seeds. It isn’t easy to pollinate a corpse flower. The place where the pollen has to end up is four feet down, and can’t be reached from above. You have to cut a small door into the side of the plant.
6:15 P.M.
It’s past closing. A ragtime concert is gearing up outside. Performers wander into the conservatory in early-twentieth-century dress.
6:16 P.M.
I catch a whiff of something sweetish, fetid, and rotten, with floral notes. Is it the corpse flower, or is it just summer in New York?
Two women behind me debate the same question. One is angry that so many people have worn perfume to the conservatory. “Why would you wear perfume to go smell something?”
A girl is standing in front of the corpse flower doing FaceTime with a guy who looks like he just woke up.
“Una mosca, una mosca, una mosca,” a woman in a wheelchair observes, referring to a passing fly.
One woman tells me she heard Hachadourian say something fascinating about the corpse flower’s “similarity to a panda.”
“Do you mean because of the crowd appeal?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “The genome,” she says. “The genome is similar to a panda.”
I fight my way back through the crowd to Hachadourian to ask about the panda genome. He looks bewildered. “All living creatures share DNA,” he says kindly, adding that he doesn’t know of any particular genetic kinship between the corpse flower and the panda.
6:17 P.M.
A cameraman from Scientific American is interviewing Hachadourian about the corpse flower.
Scientific American: “Does it have a name?”
M.H.: “It hasn’t been named yet.”
Publicist [off camera, under his breath]: “We were about to name it Godot.”
6:57 P.M.
On the B.Q.E., trying to explain the corpse flower to an Uber driver from Ghana. “You are saying, every ten years it blooms, for one day, and it smells like a dead body?” the driver asks. “I don’t know about this plant. I really don’t know.”
The driver wants to know whether other people visited the plant, or only me, and how much it costs to get in. “Why do people pay twenty dollars to smell something that smells like a dead body?” he asks.
I explain that this is the very journalistic question I was sent to investigate.
He asks if I am “a science major,” and whether I was able to speak with a scientific expert. I tell him that I did in fact talk to an expert. “Did the expert know why people want to smell something like that?” he asks.
“I don’t think anyone can totally explain it,” I reply. “I think it’s human nature.”
