A corpse flower named Pete is about to bloom in a greenhouse at Geelong Botanic Gardens, and staff expect big crowds when it does. The plant stands 1.5 metres tall and is expected to flower in the next few days, the ABC reports. The Geelong Times says the bloom is expected on or around Sunday.
The flowering will be brief. The bloom usually lasts 24 to 48 hours, and the plant typically flowers only every seven to 10 years. Afterwards the flower collapses and the plant retreats underground.
The gardens' last corpse plant bloomed in November 2024 and drew more than 20,000 visitors, some from as far as Alice Springs and Perth, according to the City of Greater Geelong. The conservatory stayed open 24 hours during that bloom, and the council's live stream drew more than 350,000 views.
"It's really quite a beautiful flower, and it has a horrific smell when it does bloom," Lucy Griffiths from the Geelong Botanic Gardens told the ABC. The smell has been likened to a dead possum, rotting cheese or fermenting cabbage. It attracts pollinators such as flies and beetles that usually lay their eggs on rotting flesh.
Ms Griffiths said she had been confident the plant would flower this year after weighing its corm, the swollen underground stem that stores its energy. "When we weighed Pete in 2024, the corm was just under 10 kilos," she said. When she weighed it again in May, it was 17.7 kilograms. The plant came out of dormancy last month and has been growing about five centimetres a day.
Pete is one of two corms gifted to the gardens in 2021 by the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia. The gardens now have four corpse flower plants. "The Titan Arum takes years to build enough energy to produce its spectacular bloom, making every flowering a truly special event," said Matt Coulter, a senior horticulture curator at the herbarium. From three seeds donated in 2006, his team has grown about 250 plants, the gardens say.
This time the team plans to collect pollen, working with Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria to help preserve the species. "We're going to be collecting pollen from Pete and hopefully using that to pollinate other plants or check viability," horticulturist Claud Bell told the Geelong Times. "We didn't get the opportunity to do this last time, so it'll be a really good learning for us."
The plant is native to Sumatra in Indonesia and needs heat and humidity. The greenhouse is kept at about 27C, and a thermal imaging camera is tracking the flower, which is expected to reach about 37C as it blooms.
Visitors should expect queues. Ms Griffiths suggested bringing mosquito repellent and sunscreen because there could be long delays getting into the greenhouse. The council is also running a live stream of Pete on its website.
