CLARKSVILLE, TN – In late June, members of the Austin Peay College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) were given the all-clear to begin once more utilizing the on-campus greenhouse.
Multiple storms had damaged the greenhouse, including a devastating hailstorm in May 2024. Austin Peay’s prized corpse flowers – massive Titan arums that can reach 8 feet tall – had to be evacuated. Zeus, who first bloomed three summers ago in 2022, found temporary refuge at the Nashville Zoo. The university’s second plant, unnamed at the time, moved into a makeshift incubator in the Technology Building High Bay, where she waited. Corpse flowers traditionally earn their names only after their first bloom.
When it came time to move the plant from the High Bay back to the greenhouse, a fun, if complicating factor arose – it was beginning its bloom cycle, and that meant preparing for visitors.
The team mobilized just as they had for Zeus in 2022, when thousands traveled from across the country to witness his debut. Stickers were printed, Dr. Donald Sudbrink prepared educational displays about the beetles that pollinate these giants in their native island of Sumatra, and the entire college rallied to the cause.
Athena – as she would soon be christened – did not bloom until Fourth of July weekend. Fittingly, she bloomed in the same hour (3 p.m.) on the same day (five days after the external leaflets began to fall) as Zeus, symmetrically aligning her own debut with her brother’s.
From June 26, when the greenhouse was ready to welcome people back through its doors, through Athena’s post-bloom period on July 5, more than 2,000 people passed through the greenhouse. They learned about corpse flowers from Dr. Karen Meisch and Dr. Amy Thompson and inhaled the sickly-sweet scent once she opened just before Independence Day. On Thursday, July 3, representatives from the College of STEM kept vigil until nearly midnight, allowing visitors an after-hours chance to see Athena as she neared full bloom.
In addition to the thousands who made the trek to see Athena in person – some from as far away as Florida – hundreds more monitored her progress on a YouTube livestream. News crews from Clarksville and Nashville covered the event, which also merited a mention on NPR’s nationally renowned News Now segment. In total, articles about the event were viewed by more than 1.5 million unique visitors online and more than 20 million people were reached by broadcast news clips. Social media hummed as well, with 120,000 impressions across all platforms.
Late in the bloom process, Thompson harvested the pollen from Athena for a later pollination. Just when the excitement of Athena’s first bloom seemed to settle, one final flourish made the greenhouse whole again: Zeus returned from the Nashville Zoo to reunite with his sister.