NC State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is giving everyone a chance to see the bloom of the titan arum at this livestream link.
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Unfortunately, if you want to smell the notorious corpse flower for yourself, you may be out of luck this year. All the available time slots to visit the flower appear to have been booked up. It's unclear if any new slots will open up; you can click here to check the registration website for yourself.
The flower, named Lupin after a character from the Harry Potter universe, produces a stinky odor (often described as being similar to rotting flesh) and heats up to the human body temperature as it blooms.
"You're not trying to attract Beyoncé you're trying to attract a fly that loves being around decaying flesh," NC State adjunct profession Gary Jesmok said.
"It mimicks a smell of road kill--that's how it draws pollinators; it's typically pollinated by flies," flower caretaker Brandon Huber said.
Lupin's measurements this year total 4-foot-6-inches tall, with its bloom spanning 33 inches in width.
"It looks like it's right out of Jurassic park that doesn't look like a normal flower at all," Jesmok said.
The bloom of the flower is a spectacle that people always travel to experience.
"Before I bloomed one, I had never seen one in person," Huber said. "I would of had to travel hours to see (it), so to have one bloom close to your backyard is really special."
It took the NC State corpse flower 13 years to bloom for the first time (in 2016). It bloomed again in 2019 and is expected to continue to do so every 3-7 years.
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