Smell ya later!
The giant, smelly flower atop the aptly-named corpse plant that had more than 25,000 floral aficionados flocking to The Bronx has completed its short bloom cycle and has wilted and collapsed, according to the New York Botanical Garden Monday.
Thanks to everyone who followed along with our corpse flower bloom in the last week!
— NY Botanical Garden (@NYBG) August 1, 2016
The flower, which is officially known as Amorphophallus titanium, began opening last Thursday. Over a million people who couldn't go and see the flower and smell its distinctive, rotten meat odor in person watched via live stream during its short, odiferous life.
(Courtesy of the New York Botanic Garden)
The rare plant will now go back to the greenhouse, pollen will be harvested for other gardens, a sample will be sent to garden's Herbarium to be cataloged, and then the plant will nap until it's ready for its next blooming cycle, the garden tweeted.
Up next for our corpse plant:
— NY Botanical Garden (@NYBG) August 1, 2016
* Back to the greenhouse
* Pollen gathered for other gardens
* Sample sent to Herbarium
* Nap for a few years
The corpse flower on view last weekend was the first at the garden in nearly 80 years. Now that the garden has a corpse flower in residence, it will take an estimated seven to 10 years for another bloom to appear on it.
"The bloom cycle of the Amorphophallus titanum is extremely unpredictable, but everyone is hoping we don’t have to wait another 80 years before seeing another one flower," said a NYBG spokesman.