Take a Short Car Ride to See (and Smell) The Infamous Corpse Flower

We took a recent trip to the Huntington Botanical Garden in San Marino, CA (located just to the southeast of Pasadena). We have an absolute passion for all things gardening, and botanical gardens are our favorites to tour (and yes, you should absolutely ask our advice on what to plant in your yard next time we are around. We LOVE to talk about plants). 

While we had an amazing time touring the gardens and art collections, we were most impressed when we walked into the Conservatory and just inside the doors was a huge Corpse Flower. 

The Corpse Flower is the largest unbranched inflorescence in the plant kingdom. It can grow more than 8 feet tall and it only blooms for a couple days once a year...and when it blooms it smells, well, like rotting flesh. So why am I sharing this? Well, it’s actually a rare thing to observe one of these flowers as they are native to the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, and even more rare if you can observe it in bloom. 

While we didn’t get to smell the obnoxious odor of the flower because it is not in bloom yet, we were absolutely blown away with its size and how odd looking it was. We were fascinated to learn that the first Corpse Flower bloom ever to occur in California was in 1999, and in that year it was the 11th bloom ever in the United States. The Huntington website offers so much interesting information about the flower, including why it smells so bad when it blooms, a log indicating its growth every day (it is nearing 5’ in height at the time of this article), a live webcam so you can see how big it is getting and a good description of what it smells like once it blooms (words used include stinky cheese, sweaty socks, and rotting fish). 

If you have a morning or afternoon to spare, we suggest you drive down to the Huntington Botanical Garden and make a day of visiting the gardens and to see the flower before it blooms. When the flower begins to bloom, it will only be open (and smelly) between 1-3 days total. At that time, The Huntington will have special reserved tickets offered to view the flower up-close. The docent told us that those tickets usually sell within an hour or two of becoming available, and are offered to The Huntington Garden Members first. So if you would like to grab a ticket to a first hand smell of the flower, becoming a member may be your best chance! 

The Huntington is open 6 days a week, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Closed Tuesdays

Prices vary depending on the day of your visit, with special discounts for seniors, children, students and military. 

Reservations are required Friday-Sunday, Holidays and Peak Seasons

Specialty Tours can also be purchased.

The first Thursday of every month is FREE DAY. Admission is only free of charge with advance reservations. More information can be found here.

by: Jessica Frank

Johnathan and Jessica Frank are a part of the Cat and Paul Real Estate Team, the #1 Keller Williams Real Estate Team in the Santa Clarita Valley and surrounding communities.  If you would like to receive our newsletter with more articles like this that feature things to do, where to go and what to eat in the Santa Clarita Valley, please subscribe to our newsletter at the top of the page.