What’s that smell at the Huntington?
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As we prep our sinuses in anticipation of the Huntington’s corpse flower reemergence along with its malodorous scent -- a smell that suggests a decomposing creature -- here’s an interesting tweet that we just received via the museum:
@TheHuntington: Stinky’s now 6 ft. 9.25 inches tall! Jim Folsom tells us what to expect: http://bit.ly/Ua4FS
The link will take you to a YouTube video (above) in which the Huntington’s chief botanist says that we can look forward to more stink at the gardens: In the next year or two, we could see the blooming of more corpse flowers in the garden as they reach maturity and prime pollination size, Folsom says. Apparently, the leaf sizes on the plants indicate that their time in the spotlight is nigh.
‘We’re looking forward to a long run of these plants,’ he says. ‘It’s sort of our palace to the stinky plant.’
The main plant -- which is the offspring of the museum’s original stinky plant -- grew 2 inches yesterday, he notes. The last time a Titan Arum plant bloomed at the Huntington was in 2002.
We’ll keep you posted on the stinky plant’s progress so you can see -- or smell -- it for yourself. And while you’re at the Huntington, you can check out the newly refurbished Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art.
-- David Ng
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