CLARKSVILLE, TN – One of Austin Peay’s corpse flower plants, Zeus, is blooming!
The plant’s spathe – the sheath that resembles a single, large petal – started opening Thursday afternoon and continues to open.
Zeus started emitting its rancid stench at about 7 p.m.
On Friday, APSU experts pollinated the female flowers with pollen from a Dartmouth flower that bloomed two weeks ago, hoping that the corpse flower might yield fruit.
Zeus is quickly unfurling into one of the world’s rarest treasures – a giant flowering structure that emits the odor of rotting meat.
As Zeus reaches peak bloom, the flower will emit the most putrid stink. But the bloom lasts only 24-36 hours.
You can see Zeus until from 6:30 a.m. to midnight on Friday, June 10, at the Sundquist Science Complex greenhouse. The greenhouse is on the first floor at the end of hallway “A.”
You also can watch Zeus grow and bloom via livestream at the Department of Biology’s titan arum webpage.