Lots of corpse flowers bloomed in 2016 and nobody knows why

Friday 29 July 2016 was a sultry evening in New York City, rounding out an oppressively sticky month. Yet residents of the five boroughs flooded to a sweltering greenhouse in the Bronx in their thousands. They were determined to see a putrid-smelling flower in the throes of its brief but spectacular reproductive display.

Amorphophallus titanum – which translates as “giant misshapen penis” – holds the record for the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence (flowering structure). Hardly any of these plants exist in cultivation, and their blooms are rare and unpredictable, occurring fleetingly once every five to 10 years.
These are crowd-commanding credentials for sure. But probably most of the people racing to the New York Botanical Garden that Friday went to experience the infamous stink: the sharp smell of decomposing flesh, released during the peak of the 24-36-hour bloom. This powerful pong gives the plant its popular name: “corpse flower”.
By the time the display ended, 25,000 visitors had gleefully subjected themselves to the monster stench while posing for souvenir selfies. Another million gawkers tuned in to watch the livestream. The New York Botanical Garden, whose last A. titanum bloom occurred in 1939, declared the specimen “a horticultural jewel 10 years in the making”.
But then, a couple of days later, corpse flowers bloomed in Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Three days after that, a plant in Colorado joined them, followed in quick succession by blooms in Missouri, Hawaii, Washington state, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Prior to the year 2000, fewer than 50 blooms had been recorded in over a century of cultivation.
Just what is going on?
Amorphophallus titanum, discovered in 1878 by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari, is native to Sumatra, Indonesia.
Its inflorescence consists of a fleshy yellow-green central spike called the spadix that stands over 2m tall, enrobed by a ruffled leaf-like cape called the spathe. Nestled at the base of the spadix, several hundred tiny female flowers grow in a ring below a band of thousands of their tiny male counterparts. During the bloom, the spathe unfurls to reveal a crimson, velvety inner surface and the putrid smell fills the air.
The chemistry of the bloom raises its temperature to over 36C 
What does it smell like exactly? Chemical analyses of the scent have identified compounds including isovaleric acid (cheese, sweat), dimethyl disulphide (garlic), dimethyl trisulphide (decomposing meat), indole (faeces) and trimethylamine (rotting fish). The foetid fragrance appears in the late evening, intensifies into the night and gradually tapers off as morning breaks.
The striking red interior and smell are both facets of an artful illusion designed to entice pollinators. According to Amorphophallus expert Wilbert Hetterscheid of the Von Gimborn Arboretum in Doorn, the Netherlands, the primary candidates are small nocturnal carrion beetles searching for freshly-dead meat to lay their eggs in.
– BBC

Lots of corpse flowers bloomed in 2016 and nobody knows why

Friday 29 July 2016 was a sultry evening in New York City, rounding out an oppressively sticky month. Yet residents of the five boroughs flooded to a sweltering greenhouse in the Bronx in their thousands. They were determined to see a putrid-smelling flower in the throes of its brief but spectacular reproductive display. Amorphophallus titanum which translates as giant misshapen penis holds the record for the worlds largest unbranched inflorescence (flowering structure). Hardly any of these plants exist in cultivation, and their blooms are rare and unpredictable, occurring fleetingly once every five to 10 years. These are crowd-commanding credentials for sure. But probably most of the people racing to the New York Botanical Garden that Friday went to experience the infamous stink: the sharp smell of decomposing flesh, released during the peak of the 24-36-hour bloom. This powerful pong gives the plant its popular name: corpse flower. By the time the display ended, 25,000 visitors had gleefully subjected themselves to the monster stench while posing for souvenir selfies. Another million gawkers tuned in to watch the livestream. The New York Botanical Garden, whose last A. titanum bloom occurred in 1939, declared the specimen a horticultural jewel 10 years in the making. But then, a couple of days later, corpse flowers bloomed in Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Three days after that, a plant in Colorado joined them, followed in quick succession by blooms in Missouri, Hawaii, Washington state, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Prior to the year 2000, fewer than 50 blooms had been recorded in over a century of cultivation. Just what is going on? Amorphophallus titanum, discovered in 1878 by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari, is native to Sumatra, Indonesia. Its inflorescence consists of a fleshy yellow-green central spike called the spadix that stands over 2m tall, enrobed by a ruffled leaf-like cape called the spathe. Nestled at the base of the spadix, several hundred tiny female flowers grow in a ring below a band of thousands of their tiny male counterparts. During the bloom, the spathe unfurls to reveal a crimson, velvety inner surface and the putrid smell fills the air. The chemistry of the bloom raises its temperature to over 36C What does it smell like exactly? Chemical analyses of the scent have identified compounds including isovaleric acid (cheese, sweat), dimethyl disulphide (garlic), dimethyl trisulphide (decomposing meat), indole (faeces) and trimethylamine (rotting fish). The foetid fragrance appears in the late evening, intensifies into the night and gradually tapers off as morning breaks. The striking red interior and smell are both facets of an artful illusion designed to entice pollinators. According to Amorphophallus expert Wilbert Hetterscheid of the Von Gimborn Arboretum in Doorn, the Netherlands, the primary candidates are small nocturnal carrion beetles searching for freshly-dead meat to lay their eggs in. BBC