Mount Holyoke’s Corpse Flower Blooms Again, Drawing Crowds to Its ‘Rotting Flesh’ Stench
SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (AP) — One person entered the lush, green Victorian-era greenhouse and smelled rotting eggs. Another said the odor evoked the memory of dissecting a dead bird. A third compared it to a stinky diaper baking in the sun. “I was expecting it to smell bad, but it smelled genuinely like rotting flesh,” said Nyx DelPrado, a first-year student at Mount Holyoke College who visited its Talcott Greenhouse this week to see the blooming of a corpse flower. “Its name is accurate,” DelPrado added with a laugh, nose wrinkled, adding that it reminded them of the scent of a dissection. The corpse flower, or Amorphophallus titanum, is a rare tropical plant known for its foul odor. It’s native to the rainforests of Sumatra and blooms infrequently and for only a brief window, releasing a pungent scent meant to mimic decaying flesh and attract pollinators such as flies and beetles. Nicknamed “Pangy,” the plant first bloomed at Mount Holyoke College in 2023, and its latest appearance has once again drawn crowds eager to witness …
