In Grand Rapids, they’re waiting for a bad smelling, rare corpse flower to bloom. Senior horticulture manager at Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Wendy Overbeck, told Michigan News Network they’ve had the flower for 18 years, but this will be the first year it blooms. She says it’s over four-and-a-half feet tall.
“When the space opens around it, it’s like a big, frilly leaf that will surround that center spike, and it will look like a giant frilled-edge cup with a deep maroon color on the inside,” Overbeck said. “It’;s absolutely gorgeous.”
Overbeck says it’s called the corpse flower because it smells like rotting flesh or meat. They’ve nicknamed it “Putricia” (Pew-trish-uh) for that reason.
