Germana Carillo In Warsaw, the rare Titan arum—known as the “corpse flower”—has bloomed, drawing crowds eager to see and smell its fleeting, foul-smelling spectacle.
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A rare spectacle in warsaw
In Warsaw, something truly extraordinary has drawn crowds by the hundreds—perhaps even thousands. People queued for hours, some just to look, others to lean in for a brave sniff, all to witness the fleeting bloom of the infamous “corpse flower” at the University of Warsaw Botanical Garden.
The plant in question is the Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the Titan arum, or more bluntly, “the flower that smells like death.” And that’s not poetic license—it really does smell like rotting flesh. But don’t worry, it’s no botanical villain. That stench is its strategy, a clever trick to lure in pollinating insects that normally dine on carcasses.
Towering bloom, short life
The Warsaw specimen stands at 5 feet 11 inches (180 cm) tall, spreads nearly 4 feet (122 cm) across, and tips the scales at about 88 pounds (40 kg). For a plant that blooms so rarely—the last time here was 2021—it’s a commanding presence. Its floral show lasts only a couple of days, sometimes even less, making each appearance a race against time.
From the jungle to the city
Native to the lush rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, the Titan arum is now endangered due to ongoing deforestation. Fortunately, a handful of botanical gardens around the world, Warsaw’s included, are working to cultivate and protect it. The first recorded bloom outside Sumatra took place back in 1889, at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew—a moment that must have seemed as surreal then as it does now.
The internet can’t look away
When the bloom finally unfurled, photos and videos quickly spread across social media: selfies, Instagram stories, TikToks capturing the gasps (and gagging) of visitors. Visually, it’s spectacular—an enormous purple spathe curling around a towering central spike. It looks as though it wandered straight out of a horror film. The smell? Well, that part fits the genre too.
And yet, the macabre allure works. For many, this was a can’t-miss event. In the end, spending a day in the company of a plant that smells like a cadaver proved to be an enormous success—for what might just be the strangest and most fascinating flower in the world.
