Milwaukee Public Museum's corpse flower about to bloom

[spiral97]

Interesting.. maybe not a good weekend to bring recruits in.. glad I'm in Dallas!

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/33590989.html

[Mufflers]

I can see it now.

"Racist Flower?  Blooming Flower Deters Black Voters"

[77ncaachamps]

This is the flower that smells like a$$, right?

Geez...I'd love to just laugh at the people who pay to smell that crap!

[rocky_warrior]

Interesting.. maybe not a good weekend to bring recruits in.. glad I'm in Dallas!

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/33590989.html

Looks like it's *really* close to blooming.  Not that I'm watching constantly or anything 

[muwarrior87]

"When it blooms, it will produce a terrible stench that can be smelled for miles."  Please tell me they have some way to contain the stench.  With the lake, breweries, and all other wonderful smells around Milwaukee, it better not stink up the surrounding area.

[JSwarriors08]

Did something happen to it?  Its big ...um... "projection" looks like it died.

[spiral97]

nothing happened and it doesn't look like anything will.. supposedly due to not keeping the room warm enough for it..
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/34151284.html

It's looking highly unlikely that Milwaukeeans will get to inhale the full pungent stink that accompanies the opening of the Milwaukee Public Museum's "corpse flower."

Today around 1 p.m. the 7-foot spadix of the museum's giant titan arum, commonly known as a corpse flower, collapsed on its side - a sign that doesn't bode well for blooming, said the museum's curator of botany, Neil Luebke.

"Well, it appears that we were unable to meet all the requirements it has to get it to open," Luebke said. "I'm very disappointed ... I believe basically we just weren't able to give it a high enough heat."

The plant blooms infrequently. When it does, it's supposed to give off a powerful odor lasting about six hours. But the native of Sumatra craves a hot, humid environment - from 80 to 85 degrees. While the temperature in the plant's space at the public museum caused visitors to sweat, it only clocked in around 76 or 77 degrees at Luebke's last reading - likely not hot enough for a bloom, he said.

Luebke said there's still a chance the plant could open up, but he's guessing it won't. Although he has only looked at the collapsed plant on the Webcam, he thinks the spadix fell because the flower had aged past the point of blooming. Another bad sign: He saw some fungal growth on it earlier today, which he'd tried to stop with a dose of fungicide.

Museum officials had tried some other tricks of the botany trade this week to nudge the stink-bomb into action: They placed ripened apples and bananas nearby to emit ethylene, a natural gas that's known to boost the bloom. But it didn't work. The plant gave off little bits of odor here and there but never opened.

"It was a good try. It was fun while it lasted," Luebke said. "But what can you do, that's nature."

[Gwaki]

OH SNAP!!! IT's a blooming

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/34198894.html

[muwarrior87]

why would anyone stick their face in the flower to smell it? someone is right now.

[Mufflers]

Why would the Public Museum purchase the flower in the first place?  It's upside is that it stinks up everything within a two mile radius.  Or maybe that's the downside.

And the Public Museum wants us to help it save it from being bankrupt.

[🏀]

Why would the Public Museum purchase the flower in the first place?  It's upside is that it stinks up everything within a two mile radius.  Or maybe that's the downside.

And the Public Museum wants us to help it save it from being bankrupt.

So can this thing be smelt outside the museum?