Something’s rotting in New York—and it’s not just that bag of living crabs someone left on the subway. Daily Intelligencer points out that the New York Botanical Gardens’ Amorphophallus titanum—better known as the “corpse flower” due to its distinct smell—is set to bloom any moment now, marking the first time this kind of plant has opened its stinky fronds in the garden in 77 years.
But if you can’t trek all the way over to the Bronx to watch it bloom, you’re best off catching the NYBG’s livestream of the plant. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like you want to be near this thing when it opens up anyway: Wikipedia describes the stench emitted from the flower as not unlike a “rotting animal.”
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The flower’s bloom takes place over a period of time between 24 and 48 hours before it dies—all this, too, after a period of vegetative growth that can last between anywhere from seven to ten years, which is very goth.
The corpse flower is so hot right now that it even gets a shout-out in the new teaser trailer for Netflix’s forthcoming Gilmore Girls revival, airing November 25. Lorelai works a corpse plant reference into a thread of speedy discussion with her daughter Rory, which also somehow weaves in Amy Schumer, gun control, and John Oliver. How Gilmore of them!
Watch that below, too, while you’re waiting for that damn flower to bloom.
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