Right now one of the lead stories down here is about Lois. The Houston Museum of Natural Science has a Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) on display. Big deal, you say? Just another flower? Not so. This is turning into a cultural event. Native flower from Sumatra, they don't bloom very often (only 28 times in the US). When it blooms, it lasts for only 3-4 days and then fades back into a dormant stage. Why Corpse Flower, because, when it blooms, it smells bad. Really bad. Like a rotting corpse ergo the classy name.
What I find amusing is all of the hoopla building up to the big event. Lois is about to peak (so all the news stations tell me). The Museum is open 24/7 to let people come by and experience the event. They have even set up a streaming video to watch it live while it happens. I can sit here and watch the progress of Lois from the comfort of my own home. Still funny to see the crowd of people hanging out around a plant at 0400. One woman has been sitting there for 20 minutes chatting on the phone. Everyone wants to be there when it blooms and take a whiff of her fragrance. Of course, when Lois does bloom, it'll be all over the news stations/paper (Stop the presses!).
Oh, how did we ever exist without the Internet?
2 comments:
There is one of these in Kew Gardens in London - huge story when it bloomed!
Of course, this sort of story is much more important than Black Panthers talking about killing white babies and people complaining that the Tea Party people are racist.
There was a corpse flower here at the Como Conservatory maybe a year or two ago, and there was a lot of hype. I didn't get to see it while it was in full bloom. It was dying off at that point. I don't remember the smell. It was pretty cool though.
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