The amazing, and aromatic, corpse flower has bloomed at New York Botanical Garden (photo by twi-ny/ees)
The New York Botanical Garden
Enid A. Haupt Conservatory
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx
Saturday, June 29, and Sunday, June 30, $12 children two to twelve, $28 adults, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org
For the third time in four years, one of the New York Botanical Garden’s rare corpse flowers has bloomed, aerating its funky aroma (rotting garbage!) in an honored position at one end of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. It’s a special privilege to be able to see (and smell!) the titan-arum (Amorphophallus titanum) in person, whether in its full glory — it started flowering on Thursday, was at its peak on Friday, and will fade away on Saturday and Sunday — so get over to the NYBG as soon as you can (remember, it’s only twenty-two minutes from Grand Central via Metro-North) to watch the tall, central spadix fall over as the lovely, colorful spathe surrounding it withers. You can follow the progress of the largest unbranched inflorescence in the plant world — well, now its demise — on the garden’s livestream here. The NYBG is also home to the excellent current exhibition “Brazilian Modern: The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx,” so the trip will be well worth it.