Students and teachers at Roseville High School in California were surprised last week when their rare corpse flower finally bloomed again, right before Halloween.
The huge flower, known for its terrible smell and unusual beauty, became the center of attention across the campus.
The corpse flower, officially known as Amorphophallus titanum, is famous around the world for its pungent smell, like rotting meat.
The smell might be unpleasant to people, but it helps attract insects in the wild that pollinate the plant. The plant is native to the rainforests of Sumatra in Indonesia and can grow over eight feet tall before it’s ready to bloom.
Students in the Think Green Club have been taking care of the plant for years, watering it and watching its growth. When it bloomed Thursday morning on Oct. 30, the news quickly spread everywhere.
Teachers halted their lessons, students came by between classes and residents from nearby neighborhoods showed up to see and smell the rare flower in the school’s greenhouse.
“It’s like a core memory,” Jeffrey Underwood, a science teacher, said. “These plants mean so much to our students.”
The flower’s appearance was also dramatic.
A tall yellow stalk, called a spadix, rose from the center, surrounded by a deep maroon, petal-like structure known as a spathe.
The bloom lasted only about two days before it began to wilt and close again. For students and faculty members, it was an unforgettable experience.
This was only the fourth time that Roseville High’s corpse flower has bloomed.
The first time was back in 2011, which made the school the first public high school in the world to grow one successfully.
The project started about 20 years ago when science teacher Gene Domek came up with the idea of building a greenhouse for students to learn about plants in a hands-on way.
He planted seeds for the flower and passed the project onto future students.
The corpse flower is hard to grow and takes a lot of patience. It usually takes between seven to 10 years for the first bloom and then several more years before it blooms again. Each bloom usually only lasts 24 to 48 hours, which makes it even more special.
Underwood said the bloom might have been helped by his students, who covered the flower in black to let its circadian rhythm develop naturally.
He believes this small change could have encouraged the plant to open.
There are estimated to be fewer than 1,000 corpse flowers left in the wild.
Because of deforestation and habitat loss in Indonesia, the plant is now listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
That makes Roseville High’s accomplishment even more meaningful. For Underwood, the most rewarding part of the experience was seeing his students’ excitement.
He said he hopes they remember this experience for years to come and realize that science can be “cool” and meaningful beyond the classroom.
The school plans to continue caring for its other corpse flowers in hopes that another one might bloom within the next few years.
