A Real Stinker

The 4-foot-tall Amorphophallus titanum, also known as titan arum or the corpse flower because of its smell — reminiscent of rotting meat — blooms June 9 at the University of California at Davis Botanical Conservatory on the UC Davis campus. The flower takes up to 15 years to bloom and rarely does so in cultivation, making the bloom a major event, the school’s botanists said. By late Wednesday, the bloom was half closed and the infamous odor had come and gone, campus officials said. The plant, nicknamed “Ted the Titan,” was grown from seed at the conservatory. After eight years, last week’s bloom was Ted’s first.