Comments on: "It's like a dead animal stink"

"It's like a dead animal stink"

tits mcgee — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:53:21 -0800

A corpse flower is blooming right now and you can watch. In addition to smelling like rotting flesh, the flowers are beautiful, and their scientific name means "misshapen giant penis."

By: Rubbstone

Rubbstone — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:56:52 -0800

Apparently, Smith College houses an Amorphophallus

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:59:17 -0800

Previously, but still interesting. I remember when they made a big stink about it over at Lehman College here in the Bronx. Please don't hurt me.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:12:11 -0800

Wow, what kismet! My giant misshapen penis smells like rotting flesh too!

By: CitizenD

CitizenD — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:39:14 -0800

yeah, but eekacat, your giant misshapen penis smells like rotting flesh all the time. this giant misshapen penis only smells like rotting flesh once every three years.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:42:04 -0800

Related - Attenborough with the other 'corpse flower'.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:13:08 -0800

The "you can watch" link goes to a page with an activex control, so non IE users may not be able to see the images. I can't, anyway.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:15:58 -0800

Seen one. They're cool, but you want, you know, like a hobo who has been rotting under a bridge smell. Instead, there's just, like, an animal that's been dead for four months, and it just rained, so you get a hint of something sort of rotten. A little disappointing.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:39:45 -0800

Hey, these are like apology flowers that come pre-loaded! "I'm really sorry I got you these. Oh, and about that other thing too."

By: Solon and Thanks

Solon and Thanks — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:45:47 -0800

Real-time videos of real-life are frustrating. They remind me that there, unlike on the internet, it gets dark and people go to sleep.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:16:28 -0800

their scientific name means "misshapen giant penis." I'm going to translate Henry Miller's dollar-a-page porn 'novel' Opus Pistorum into LOLCATese and call it Titan Arum.

By: Large Marge

Large Marge — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:41:53 -0800

I just read that one of the UC Berkeley Corspe Flowers is also blooming this week.

By: chococat

chococat — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:50:11 -0800

Huh. Kind of looks like something that would suddenly make a screamy noise and then kill you.

By: unmake

unmake — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:57:48 -0800

On a slow news day A corpse flower blooms.

By: autodidact

autodidact — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:37:40 -0800

I saw one of these blooming at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington Ontario in February 2006. It was pretty awesome, reminded me a lot of Little Shop of Horrors the way the tentacles from this thing were clambering around the room.

By: fuzz

fuzz — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:18:18 -0800

A friend gave me a sprout a couple of months ago. It's been really easy to take care of it, and so far it's grown into a nice leafy plant about a foot tall. I never thought I'd be looking forward to filling my house with the stench of rotting corpses.

By: SteveInMaine

SteveInMaine — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:30:08 -0800

Real-time videos of real-life are frustrating. They remind me that there, unlike on the internet, it gets dark and people go to sleep. Here's a time-lapse movie of a flower from its bloom last year in Charlotte that might keep you awake. And here's a VR panorama view of the bloom.

By: fuzzypantalones

fuzzypantalones — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:06:12 -0800

And here's a VR panorama view of the bloom. posted by SteveInMaine at 6:30 AM on July 18 there's something kind of "off" about that picture with the little girl smiling with her head next to a plant named "misshapen giant penis".

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:18:27 -0800

The popular name titan arum was invented by the broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, for his BBC TV series The Private Life of Plants, in which the flowering and pollination of the plant were filmed for the first time. Attenborough felt that constantly referring to the plant as Amorphophallus on a popular TV documentary would be inappropriate. Yes. Let's censor nature! Let's bowdlerize the world! Let us sterilize the name of every single animal, plant, spore and bacterium until none of them remind us of sex anymore!

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:19:04 -0800

Also: Is this a carrot in my pocket or do I have a misshapen orange penis? First to the right answer gets a free favourite.

By: hooptycritter

hooptycritter — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:46:21 -0800

A penis at Smith? How unusual! Maybe there will be a class this fall on how phallocentrism has spread to the floral realm.

By: fungible

fungible — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:15:45 -0800

Quick, someone use this to make some SFW porn.

By: dlugoczaj

dlugoczaj — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:17:00 -0800

We just had one of these bloom at UConn last week. My husband and kids and I went out to see it at about 10:30 at night --they kept the greenhouse open for folks to see it at its peak, and see it at its peak we did. We walked into the greenhouse and were immediately bowled over by the smell (and it was one room over from the room you walk into to enter!). I had a hanky with me to put over my nose, and I was damn grateful that I did, because I really needed it until I could get somewhat used to the stench. I am glad we went--it's certainly something you don't see every day--but what an ugly mofo it was.

By: nax

nax — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:23:49 -0800

Feed me, Seymour!

By: Daddy-O

Daddy-O — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:39:13 -0800

How can I arrange for a bouquet of these to be sent to my ex-girlfriend?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:46:13 -0800

Can't you just send her a bucket of cocks?

By: balberth

balberth — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:38:30 -0800

For the past five years or so, nearly everyone in the more populous parts of the USA has been within driving distance of at least one blooming Amorphophallus titanum sometime in the summer. It was not always this way. In 1889, a single flower a bloomed at Kew Gardens outside of London, grown from seed. In 1901,1926 and 1929 other blooms were displayed there. In 1939, another bloom was displayed in New York. There was also a sporadic display of blooms since the 1900's, mostly in Germany and the Netherlands. In 1996, another plant bloomed at Kew. In 1998 a plant bloomed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida. Then, suddenly, all hell broke loose - these things were popping up everywhere. Not many people know why. Much of the recent spate of blooms is because of the enthusiasm of the late James R. Symon, MD. Plants were his hobby, and he became fascinated with the study of Amorphophallus in particular. So fascinated that he made several trips to southeast Asia to collect and to study. He and Wilbert Hetterscheid assisted David Attenborough with his filming there in 1993. And he sent seed collections back to the USA in the mid-90's, which were distributed to quite a few different botanical gardens. These seeds are the source of many of the recent flowerings. Want to grow one yourself? You'll need to live in the tropics, or at least have a 10' tall 100+sqft greenhouse handy. You could, however, grow one of this plant's smaller, hardier, no less weird, cousins.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:49:50 -0800

Kind of looks like something that would suddenly make a screamy noise and then kill you. Perhaps they are like the poison dart frogs of South America where they don't actually synthesize the defense themselves, but get it from the food that they eat. Which is to say, maybe when no one is looking it does kill people and that's what everyone is smelling. At least, this is what I'm going to suggest when I make a horror movie about these. Of course, those will be able to get up and chase people down...

By: jenfullmoon

jenfullmoon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:32:08 -0800

I don't get the fascination with these things, and I live in a town with one. No, I did not go smell the stank.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:43:26 -0800

"... so, tell me Two-Dogs-Fucking, why you so interested?"