Foul-Smelling Flower Opens With Sweet Success

There’s the unmistakable smell of success around the Fullerton Arboretum this week.

For the first time in Orange County--and only the second time in California--a “corpse flower” is unfurling its stinky 5-foot bloom.

There will be postcards. Commemorative T-shirts. And, arboretum officials anticipate, very long lines of people happy to pay $5 and wait in the heat. All this for something that smells like rotting flesh.

“I’m looking forward to the smell; it’s sort of a twisted thing,” said nursery manager Chris Barnhill, who discovered the flower opening at 2 p.m. Tuesday. The odor, which sets in once the flower blooms more fully, indicates the flower is ready for pollination. It is expected to leak out some time this morning.

The plant’s stinky perfume, meant to lure pollinating dung beetles, can sometimes be smelled half a mile away. Botanists say unseasonable heat is responsible for prying the bud open so quickly. They didn’t expect it to bloom until Thursday.

Last year, a blooming corpse flower, named for its putrid scent, attracted more than 76,000 visitors to the Huntington Library in San Marino during its three-day bloom.

This will be only the 12th time that the Indonesian titan arum, considered the largest flower in the world, has opened in the United States.

It was 58 inches tall on Tuesday, and looked like a giant ear of unhusked corn surrounded by a ruffled magenta skirt. When fully opened, the skirt, called the spathe, could be up to 4 feet wide.

“It’s reminiscent of something out of ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ ” said Carole Herndon of Fullerton.

The titan will be on view from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the plant’s projected three-day bloom and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. until then. The arboretum is on the Cal State Fullerton campus. Updates: (714) 278-2981.