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A tropical plant with a strong, stinky smell is officially blooming at the California Academy of Sciences as of Tuesday February 27. If you’re wondering why that’s newsworthy (aside from the unique smell), it’s because a corpse flower only blooms once every 2 to 3 years and only for 1 to 3 days.
We recommend getting tickets in advance and expect that there might be a line to see the rare flower. Mirage is located in the Osher Rainforest at the California Academy of Sciences, which is open from 10 am until 4:30 pm Monday through Saturday. If you want to see the flower in action but don’t want to risk smelling the rotten fish and sweaty socks, you can watch a live stream of the flower.
The California Academy of Sciences corpse flower, named “Mirage,” was first donated to the academy in 2017 and, for the past 5 years, has been growing and preparing to bloom. Corpse flowers, scientifically known as Amorphophallus titanum, are rare and endangered. The bloom is estimated to reach 5 to 7 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet in diameter; in the wild, they can even grow to 10 feet tall. The flower originates from Sumatra in Indonesia, and there are less than 1,000 left in the wild.
The flower is probably most notorious for its strong odor, which is meant to attract insects for pollination. Visitors will likely smell a combination of rotting cabbage, garlic, rotting fish, and sweaty socks. The smell is typically most potent when it first blooms and will decrease over time.
You can find updates on the flower on the academy’s Instagram.
Mirage isn’t the only corpse flower in San Francisco. The Conservatory of Flowers is also home to one named Scarlett, which bloomed last summer. Corpse flowers only bloom once every few years, so you don’t want to miss your chance to see one now.