HOUSTON — We've been watching and waiting for 'Meg' the corpse flower at the Museum of Natural Science to bloom, and on Wednesday morning, we got word that it's started!
The museum sent us a video of 'Meg' blooming, which you can see in the video window above. Once a corpse flower blooms, it puts out a smell that's been compared to rotting flesh.
"Most flowers, they have a nice smell," Lauren Davidson, who manages the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the museum, said. “The reason that it was called a corpse flower is because it kind of smells like death."
But, Meg is very much alive.
"She was at 38 inches, so that's a very large flower,” Davidson said over the weekend.
Davidson said at the time, that the bloom would come Tuesday or Wednesday and she was right.
That stench of the corpse flower has a purpose.
“Because of the pollinators that it is trying to attract," Davidson said. "So the things that are attracted to this flower are not butterflies or bees, but it's mostly actually flesh flies and carrion beetles. So, these are insects that go to rotting meat to lay eggs."
While corpse flowers, which are native to Sumatra, bloom multiple times in their 30 to 40-year life span, each short-lived “florescence” only happens about once every five to 10 years.
Davidson said 'Meg' will bloom for two or three days.
The museum is in its summer hours. For more information, click here.