Corpse flower to grace Chicago with putrid presence
A rare and foul-smelling moment in the plant kingdom is about to unfold at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The corpse flower named "Spike" is on the verge of blooming and if you've smelled one, you might want to run, reports CBS News correspondent Adriana Diaz.
Thousands have signed up to receive email alerts the moment Spike shows signs of plant-life labor.
Over the past few weeks, it's been given round-the-clock care, and is even the star of its own 24-hour live stream broadcast, all to make sure no one misses the big moment.
For its caretaker, the anticipation has been agonizing.
"We're first-time parents, expectant mother, or father here, waiting for our child to be born," floriculturist Tim Pollak, who raised Spike, said.
Nearly 40,000 people have joined the wait. They've filed through the muggy greenhouse-turned-maternity ward, all hoping to witness the the moment when the largest unbranched flower species in the world gives birth to full bloom.
It's been expecting for 12 years.
The plant is an amorphophallus titanium and has both male and female components.
His family tree has roots in the rain forest of Sumatra, Indonesia, the flower's single natural habitat.
For the last 12 years, Pollak has looked after Spike, making sure it's well fed, and maintaining the perfect temperature, waiting for the day this 5-foot, 8-inch flower shows its true colors.
"Watching something that takes 12 years to flower is just amazing," Pollak said. "A lot of people have trouble keeping a house plant alive for 12 months, let alone 12 years."
Spike's leaves have started to unfurl, a clue that it's due any day now.
The visual delight will be accompanied by a putrid stench -- something just as breathtaking, but not in a good way.
"The smell of death, mixed in with some mothball; the smell of skunk, all of those things mixed together," Pollak said.
Last week, another member of spike's species bloomed in Denver. Thousands of curious onlookers endured a 3-hour wait in the sun for a photo opp and whiff.
"To me it smells like dead mice," one young visitor said.
"Smells like Indianapolis in the summertime," visitor Maureen Spieglman said.
Pollak said the flower is trying to imitate rotting flesh on purpose.
"In the wild, they're trying to attract dung beetles, flesh flies, insects that would actually be attracted to a dead animal," he said. "And then the coloration of the flower, is also to make it look like meat too. All of those things are luring, or tricking, those insects for pollination."
And for plant fanatics, this is a big deal.
"A lot of people in the horticulture and botany world, this is on their bucket list. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see," Pollak said.
With no insects to pollinate Spike, it will be artificially inseminated once it blooms. The bloom will only last up to 36 hours.