thomas wilhelm's spirit flower

For the first time in nearly 80 years, NYBG has a corpse flower on display! Also known as the titan-arum, Amorphophallus titanum last bloomed here in 1939, and our current specimen looks just about ready to unfurl. These unpredictable plants have a brief but vivid blooming period of just 24–36 hours, and that's after 10 years of careful tending by our horticulturists. We expect the plant to live up to its name in the next few days with a vibrant color and fragrance that should make clear why it's called the corpse flower. Head to nybg.org to learn more about this upcoming botanical spectacle!

A photo posted by The New York Botanical Garden (@nybg) on Jul 20, 2016 at 2:20pm PDT

here's a live stream: