Stinky blooms again
Visitors line up for an opportunity to hold their noses
Rotten cheese. The kitty’s litter box. Rancid fish.
Those were the descriptors that Denver Botanic Gardens’ notorious corpse flower, rightfully named Stinky, elicited from viewers of its rare, fleeting bloom Friday morning.
Emily Montcrief, waving her hand in front of her nose as she exited the aromatic exhibit, put the scentdepiction most poignantly: “It’s like hotboxing a car with a McDonald’s fart.”
The flower’s scientific moniker is Amorphophallus titanum, and it’s native to rain forests in Sumatra, although this particular plant has drawn crowds in Denver for years. The 53inchtall flower can take years to actually bloom and smell. Once it opens, the flower and its stench typically linger for only a day or two. Stinky was brought to the gardens in 2005, first bloomed in August 2015 and now has returned for an endofsummer stinkfest.
When Little Stinker last graced the gardens three years ago, it produced much less of a putrid punch but drew massive crowds, with people waiting in lines up to eight hours to get a whiff.
The crowd Friday morning was much more tame, with people able to walk in and venture up to Stinky with only minutes to brace themselves for the stench of microwaved Brussels sprouts that filled the exhibit room housing the ropedoff, phallicshaped plant.
Maddie Bailey, 9, and her siblings Gavin, 7, and Chloe, 4, led the way into the gardens, wiggling, pumping their arms and chanting “Stinky! Stinky!” in unison. Parents Amy and Dakota Bailey headed up their brigade of eager children, smiling.
Little Chloe squealed in delight, adding, “Stinky is so cute! I want to see him!”
When they reached the famed plant, all three kids clapped their hands over their noses and groaned in sheer delight.
“It was real big and smelly,” Gavin said, giving Stinky his utmost approval.
Horticulturist Nick Snakenberg stood near the bloom like a proud dad, which made sense as his preoccupation with the flower was nothing if not fatherly.
Thanks to a livecamera feed, Snakenberg was able to check on Stinky’s progress from home.
“I would wake up in the night to check on it,” Snakenberg said.
Once Snakenberg noticed
Stinky looked like it was ready to make its debut, the gardens went allhandsondeck preparing for the big day. Souvenir Tshirts needed to be ordered. More food had to be prepared. Would Stinky stink out any events on the books?
“It’s a big, fullon staff planning thing,” said Erin Bird, spokeswoman for the Botanic Gardens.
The gardens emailed out a news releases late Thursday afternoon announcing “STINKY IS STARTING TO OPEN,” with word that the corpse flower likely would begin its bloom that evening.
Snakenberg compared the pungent event to “the panda bears of the plant world.”
“It’s a charismatic megaflower,” Snakenberg said. “If it’s a way to draw people to the Botanic Gardens and have them check out all the other stuff we offer, that’s great.”
While prime viewing is during the first 24 hours of the bloom, visitors can trickle in during regular garden hours from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The smell was enough to entice 22yearold Miranda Schieving to the gardens early. The recent college graduate had one week left in Denver, and it was time to get a whiff of an icon of her hometown before she left.
“I’m so down to wake up early to smell a giant plant that smells,” Schieving said.
For anyone who wants a sniff, Stinky will be out on display through Sunday morning. A wedding at the Botanic Gardens on Sunday is forcing the smelly beast back behind glass, Bird said.
Garden members can enter for firstsniffs early at 8 a.m., and the normal hours of 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. will remain through the weekend.