Christchurch Botanic Gardens has another stinky surprise for plant enthusiasts – a second corpse flower has bloomed, less than a month after the first.
Another one of the four titan arum that grow at the gardens bloomed overnight on Wednesday. It is on public display in the function room until 8pm on Thursday only.
“Round II. This little monster just bloomed last night – two titan arums in almost as many weeks? We're feeling lucky,” Christchurch Botanic Gardens posted on Facebook.
It is warning visitors to bring umbrellas and jackets as queues are expected in the rainy weather.
“It is the first time for us to have two plants flowering in the same season,” director of the Botanic Gardens and Garden Parks Wolfgang Bopp said.
“Today is the chance to see it”, Bopp said. “We anticipate it will start to go over tonight so it is on display just for today.”
This bloom comes just weeks after thousands of Cantabrians queued, some for up to 90 minutes, to see and smell the first corpse flower when it bloomed on December 19.
The notoriously foul-smelling Amorphophallus titanum is famed for emitting an odour likened to rotting flesh when it blooms.
Visitors will be able to see three titan arum plants in different stages - the newly bloomed flower, one in its leaf stage, and the withered remains of "Lady Gagag," the flower that bloomed in December.
The plants, almost 20 years old, first flowered in 2020, but since then, “none”, Bopp said.
“It is hard to predict when they flower. Between the first and the second plant there were three to four days difference to be at the same stage of blooming, hence it is hard for us to say when it will do so.”
The plant started to open just after 5pm on Wednesday, and is about 30cm shorter than the other blooming plant.
“We were less concerned of being able to move it through our doorways in the building, compared to the other one,” Bopp said.
The new bloom is the same bud that was on display during December's viewing.
"We didn't think it looked big enough to become a flower but we're absolutely thrilled to be proved wrong," the gardens said.
The corpse flower blooms unpredictably, only after storing enough energy in its massive underground stem. Time between flowering can range from a few years to more than a decade, making two blooms in less than a month highly unusual.
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