LONG BEACH, Calif. - "Phil" the corpse flower is finally blooming at California State University Long Beach.
The burgundy colored spathe finally opened around 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Hours later a long line of spectators formed, all to take pictures and catch a whiff for themselves.
The smell is why people call it the corpse flower or corpse lily. Its scientific name is amorphophallus titanum.
This bloom only happens about once every decade. Annee Boyer brought her out-of-town friend to come see, and smell, Phil.
“It really smells like rotting flesh. There are children that say it smells like garlic, but really rotting garlic,“ said Boyer.
The smell comes from the top part of the flower to attract pollinators. The smell is strongest the first night of flowering. Phil is 11-years-old and has never bloomed before.
While he is impressive, Boyer says Phil is not the smelliest corpse flower she’s experienced. Phil is the third corpse flower she’s smelled. She’s seen blooms at Huntington library and Orange Coast College. You have to know where your closest greenhouses are if you want to see a bloom since corpse flowers aren’t native to California. And the bloom only lasts 24 to 48 hours.
Boyer is a schoolteacher and the photos she got of Phil will definitely become part of her next lesson plan.