Giant, stinky flower blooms in Edmonton, delighting fans with its stench

EDMONTON — The sweet smell of NHL playoff success isn’t the only aroma that’s exciting people in Edmonton.

While fans of the Edmonton Oilers celebrated their team taking a 2-0 lead in their second-round series against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night, a corpse flower known as “Putrella” bloomed at the city’s Muttart Conservatory. 

The two-metre-tall plant produces an odour similar to rotting meat during the bloom, which is anticipated to last just 48 hours.

The conservatory says it will stay open late Saturday and Sunday to accommodate all of the people who are expected to line up for a whiff of the flower’s stench.

Nearly 9,000 people visited when Putrella became the first corpse flower to bloom in western Canada in April 2013.

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In its native Indonesia, the corpse flower’s smell attracts carrion beetles, which become covered in pollen that they carry to nearby corpse flowers for reproduction.

The conservatory says that due to its enormous size, a massive amount of time and energy is needed for a corpse flower to bloom.

Because of this, it goes through years of growth and dormancy stages.

Putrella’s last bloom was in 2015.

The Canadian Press