People Are Lining Up to See a Plant That Smells Like a Dumpster

Corpse flowers can take years to bloom, but when they do it’s an olfactory event nobody wants to miss.

During a typical summer week, the University of Rhode Island’s greenhouse might draw 10 to 20 people.

Jill Parrett and family visit the corpse flower at the University of Rhode Island.

When Jill Parrett showed up around midnight on a recent Wednesday, she was visitor number 3,744 of the day. After a four-hour wait, she finally got to see a blooming flower named Morticia. And catch a whiff.

It smelled like “a hint of dumpster at a seafood restaurant,” said Parrett, 46, who visited with her husband and two teenage kids.

The Woonsocket, R.I.,

Jill Parrett and family visit the corpse flower at the University of Rhode Island.

“Obviously we don’t have smell-o-vision,” she said.

Corpse flowers are showstoppers in the staid world of conservatories and botanic gardens. Their prehistoric look and yearslong waits for blooms make them intriguing. But the biggest draw might be the deathlike stench when they open.

Two flowered in June at the U.S. Botanic Gardens in Washington, D.C., which warned online that visitors should act fast: “The stench is just during the first 12-18 hours.”

Hailing from the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, corpse flowers are a massive, putrid spectacle. They grow in both a leaf stage, when they resemble small trees, and in a rare flowering stage that may have gaps of several years or even a decade.

The central stalk, called a spadix, can grow above caretakers’ heads just weeks after first sprouting above the soil. The real show starts when the enormous outer layer called a spathe opens up, revealing a deep reddish interior. That’s also when the olfactory assault begins.

There’s a purpose to the stench: attracting flies and beetles to help carry pollen. “There’s something out there that thinks a corpse flower smells like heaven,” said Marc Hachadourian, director of glasshouse horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, which hosted a corpse flower bloom last year.

Hachadourian says some blooms smell like dog feces and others like rotting flesh. He’s made the mistake of coming home with the odor still clinging to his clothes. “I came in the house and was pointed towards the shower,” he said.

Ben Robbins, manager at URI’s Horridge Conservatory greenhouse, had another analogy after Morticia finally bloomed: “You go on vacation and forget something on the kitchen counter and come back the next week.”

Ben Robbins, manager at URI's greenhouse, speaks with visitors of Morticia.

Gary McGraw wanted one of his own. The 73-year-old bought a seedling online five years ago and planted it in a greenhouse outside his Miami home. The flower, which he named Lil’ Stinker, has flourished.

It hasn’t bloomed, though, and McGraw said his wife isn’t interested in being around when it does. “I promised her a vacation,” he said. “I’ll pay for her to leave town.”

He’s eagerly awaiting that moment. “I really haven’t smelled it in its prime,” McGraw said. “I may regret what I’m doing when that happens, but, you know, right now, it’s just a very cool gigantic flower.”

Rhode Island’s Morticia, named for the Addams Family matriarch, spent much of its life as a single leaf stalk with multiple leaflets before going dormant, leaving what looked like a big pot of dirt.

Crowds line up for the bloom at URI.

By mid-June, Morticia towered over 6 feet.

In late May, Morticia’s handlers noticed something sprouting well above the surface of her pot. The conservatory posted online that it might be a bud, meaning a flowering could come soon. By mid-June, the entire plant, including the spadix and pot, towered over 6 feet.

The conservatory launched the livestream in early June when the bloom seemed imminent.

As the flower grew, Robbins projected it would open sometime between June 15 and 17, a Monday through Wednesday. The plant started to open late Tuesday, and then it was game on for Wednesday, with Morticia at the peak of its stink power. Lucky timing for some, but not everyone.

“NOOOO tell her to wait till Thursday!!!!!” one person wrote on Instagram. “Wow I feel betrayed. I was there just 7 hours ago,” another wrote.

Yoshiko Rivas Johnson, a 21-year-old in Hope Valley, R.I., didn’t spot the announcement until a day after the bloom. A plant enthusiast who’s watched corpse-flower videos, she was devastated.

“That was on my bucket list,” she said.

Abbi O'Leary, right, and her friends commemorated the occasion with T-shirts.

Abbi O’Leary and her friends ditched Wednesday-night karaoke plans to go catch a whiff of Morticia. O’Leary, 26, even made band T-shirts reading “Corpse Flower Tour 2026: One Night Only.” (Phrases on the back included “Here to See What the Big Stink is About” and “I Smelt What the Flower Dealt.”)

A mending broken ankle made the four-hour wait a bit arduous, but worthwhile.

As for her impressions, she said it was as tall as a 14-year-old kid and smelled like rotten meat.

Write to Sanai Hadiya Rashid at Sanai.Rashid@wsj.com