Who Wants to Get a Whiff of Flower Smelling of Rotting, Fetid Bodies? You Know You Do -- Head to SFSU This Weekend.

By Joe Eskenazi Fri., Jun. 26 2009 at 11:30 AM

Categories: SF Oddities, Science and Tech

SFSU

A stinky weekend is in store...

Anecdotally, your humble narrator recalls a story about a local couple who demanded their money back from an area arboretum after their wedding was ruined by an unexpected blossoming of the garden's prize corpse flower. And they don't call it a corpse flower for nothing.

If you've ever wanted to experience the olfactory sensation of a plant whose odor really and truly could be mistaken for a large, rotting animal -- now's your chance. Corpse flowers, which grow naturally only in Indonesia, bloom erratically -- but, like volcanoes, they offer telltale signs of an impending eruption. And San Francisco State's specimen is due for a pungent weekend outburst.

SFSU's Titan Arum will be available for viewing (and smelling) on Sunday and Monday at the university's greenhouse, which is just north of Hensill Hall (find it here).

The greenhouse will be open from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday and Monday. Guided tours are available and admission is free.

Those who scheduled weddings for the greenhouse at this time aren't going to get their money back.