There is no shortage of unpleasant odors in New York City: overflowing garbage on the sidewalk, unmentionable substances in the subway, traffic fumes and more. This week, yet another foul scent has entered the smellscape, but in this case, New Yorkers are flocking to experience it: the blooming of an Amorphophallus gigas, a.k.a. a corpse flower, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
The rare plant smells of rotting flesh to attract pollinators like beetles and flies that are typically drawn to dead animals. It only flowers every three to five years after its first time, which can take nearly a decade. Technically, the blossom is an inflorescence, not a flower, because it is several little flowers altogether — think of hydrangeas or hyacinths.
When the garden announced the bloom’s arrival on social media around 10:30 a.m. Friday morning, New Yorkers skipped work and canceled plans, rushing to bear witness to the natural wonder. They buzzed around the gigas, which is nearly six feet tall, taking photos and breathing deeply.
Inside the garden’s Aquatic House, where the plant is kept, its stench was unavoidable. It also changed with time. At first it evoked a dead rat, but later in the morning it was more akin to cheese or ginkgo. And the experience was multi-sensory: The gigas emits heat, also to lure pollinators.
The corpse flower has become an unlikely celebrity, giving New Yorkers something weird and wonderful to celebrate amid the cold and dark of January. After soliciting nominations on Instagram, the members of the garden’s staff named it “Smelliot.”
Alas, Smelliot will most likely stick around for only three days, said Chris Sprindis, the gardener for the Aquatic House and orchid collection at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. On Friday, visitors seemed thrilled to be there for the rare sight and smell.
“Even while the chills of winter can easily keep me indoors snuggled under a blanket, watching this once-in-a-lifetime flower about to bloom has made me very excited,” said Jackie Jackson, a ceramicist from Manhattan. The days leading up to the inflorescence’s appearance felt like “waiting to become a grandmother,” she added.
Ms. Jackson had been checking Instagram daily for updates since last week, when the garden announced the impending bloom. “I’ve only seen stories about the corpse flower on TV or online, so to be able to see and smell this in person is a tremendous and exciting opportunity,” she said.
The garden acquired the gigas from a nursery in Malaysia in 2018, when it was about a year or two old. Now, at 8 or 9, this is its first inflorescence. Most years, it just produces a leaf.
Mr. Sprindis explained that the plant stores energy for years in an underground corm, or storage organ. “Once that is a sufficient size, it uses that stored-up energy to bloom,” he said. “So it’s not something you can do all the time.” Eventually, the bloom collapses and becomes dormant, at which point nothing will be visible above the soil.
Andrew Orner visited the garden on Friday with Matt Gorman, a friend and fellow product manager. Mr. Orner described the odor as similar to that of “briny, dead fish.” But he was glad to experience it nonetheless. “There aren’t many scent experiences —” he continued, and Mr. Gorman jumped in, “intentional scent experiences.”
In 2018, a close relative of the gigas, an Amorphophallus titanum, bloomed at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The event also created excitement, with New Yorkers lining up to take a whiff of its similarly foul scent. Many visitors to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden have been mistaking the gigas for the titanum, said Mr. Sprindis, but the gigas is taller and far rarer.
According to the PlantSearch database of the Botanic Gardens Conservation International, a group that represents botanic gardens, the gigas can be found in only 10 gardens in the world. The titanum can be found in 94. In the wild, the gigas is not easy to come by either. It is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and the country considers it a protected species.
For Mr. Sprindis, who has worked at the Brooklyn garden since 2021, experiencing the bloom represented a personal milestone. “Before I started working here, I had never even seen this plant before,” he said. “So it was exciting to just see it, and then to be the one who’s growing it when it blooms for the first time, it’s even more special.”
Aprajita Singh and Allegra Lovejoy, graduates of Yale’s School of the Environment, were among the first to experience the gigas in full bloom. “I was familiar with this plant but only in a textbook way, so this is special,” Ms. Singh said.
Ms. Lovejoy, who works at the Center for Earth Ethics, an environmental nonprofit, was heartened by the crowd. “In such an urban and digitized population,” she said, “for people to be excited about a plant and make the effort to come out here is a really great thing.”
