SEATTLE — A corpse flower is blooming this week for the second time ever at the Amazon Spheres in Seattle.
Morticia the corpse flower began blooming Wednesday night, and the peak viewing of the bloom is during the first 24 hours, according to the Spheres. Blooms last 48 hours.
Public viewing is expected to be open Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., although all reservations were booked as of Thursday morning. People can also watch Morticia’s bloom on a Twitch livestream from the Spheres.
Morticia first bloomed in late October 2018 when thousands of visitors witnessed the event at the Spheres and online, according to Amazon.
Corpse flowers, which are native to Indonesia, have the largest unbranched flowering structure and can grow over 9 feet tall, according to Amazon.
It can take at least seven years before corpse flowers bloom for the first time, according to Amazon. When corpse flowers bloom, they smell like rotting flesh, giving them their name. The plant also heats up to 98 degrees to help the smell travel even further, attracting pollinators like carrion beetles and flies.
When they aren’t in bloom, Amazon said corpse flowers produce one leaf that can grow 15 feet tall, resembling a small tree.
Corpse flowers are rare. There are fewer than 1,000 of them left in the wild, and their population has declined more than 50% in the last 150 years, according to the U.S. Botanic Garden.
The Spheres received their second corpse flower, Bellatrix, in 2019. Bellatrix was 6 feet tall during her bloom.