There was a sight to behold at the Atlanta Botanical Garden over the weekend, even if you had to hold your nose to get close to it.
A rare plant known as the African Corpse Flower bloomed at the garden in what’s believed to be the first time in North America.
And to think the gaudy flower - aptly named because it imitates the stench of rotting flesh to attract pollinating flies – resulted from an informal challenge to public gardens around the country to produce a first-ever flower.
“It’s a big, showy, smelly impressive flower, and no one to my knowledge has seen it before at a garden in North America,” said Alex Eilts PhD, an ecologist and research associate at the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences.
Several years ago, Eilts traded some of his plants with a group of large botanical gardens, including Atlanta’s.
“You guys have really done something there,” Eilts said.
Native to Central Africa, the plant’s species, Pararistolochia goldieana, is found in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, where it’s threatened by habitat loss.
The plant is not widely cultivated in the United States and according to Amanda Bennett, the Atlanta Garden’s vice president of horticulture and collections, it is not believed to have ever bloomed in one of the many botanical gardens throughout the country.
In Africa, the perennial’s rare woody vine with glossy heart-shaped leaves climbs high into the trees of tropical rainforests and produces that continent’s largest flower – shaped like a saxophone with a mottled purple to reddish throat. Yet, the vine is relatively dainty for such a big flower.
“The flower looks completely outsized for the plant it comes from,” Eilts said, “making it all the more dramatic.”
Paul Blackmore, who manages the garden’s Fuqua Conservatory where the African Corpse Flower grows, said a volunteer discovered the bloom, measuring about 12 inches long by 6 inches wide, lying on the ground a few days ago.
“She thought it was a paper bag,” said Blackmore, who planted the vine in 2018.
Eilts, who had produced a bumper crop of plants from seed imported for his university’s conservatory and botanical collection, shared several of his plants with Atlanta in 2018.
“I thought it would be fun to send out the plants to gardens we trade with often and have an informal contest to see who could be the first to bloom one in North America,” he said. The list of gardens included the New York Botanical Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden and Florida’s Fairchild Botanical Garden.
“And you guys won,” Eilts said about Atlanta.
While it’s possible a green-thumb hobbyist somewhere in North America already set the record for the first bloom, Blackmore couldn’t be prouder.
“The fact that this rare and remarkable plant has only bloomed at the Atlanta Botanical Garden is testimony to our professional horticulturists and curators,” said Mary Pat Matheson, the Garden’s president and CEO. “They have a depth of knowledge about plants that is incomparable, and we are fortunate to have Paul and his expertise on our team.”
The bloom didn’t last long. It has now faded.