Mount Holyoke’s corpse flower blooms again, drawing crowds to its
‘rotting flesh’ stench
[April 16, 2026]
By LEAH WILLINGHAM
SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (AP) — One person entered the lush, green
Victorian-era greenhouse and smelled rotting eggs. Another said the odor
evoked the memory of dissecting a dead bird. A third compared it to a
stinky diaper baking in the sun.
“I was expecting it to smell bad, but it smelled genuinely like rotting
flesh,” said Nyx DelPrado, a first-year student at Mount Holyoke College
who visited its Talcott Greenhouse this week to see the blooming of a
corpse flower. “Its name is accurate,” DelPrado added with a laugh, nose
wrinkled, adding that it reminded them of the scent of a dissection.
The corpse flower, or Amorphophallus titanum, is a rare tropical plant
known for its foul odor. It's native to the rainforests of Sumatra and
blooms infrequently and for only a brief window, releasing a pungent
scent meant to mimic decaying flesh and attract pollinators such as
flies and beetles. Nicknamed “Pangy,” the plant first bloomed at Mount
Holyoke College in 2023, and its latest appearance has once again drawn
crowds eager to witness — and smell — the fleeting spectacle.
What appears to be a single bloom is actually an enormous inflorescence,
a cluster of many tiny flowers at the base of a tall central column
called the spadix and surrounded by a deep purple, velvety spathe.
Although the towering inflorescence withers after a few days, the same
plant survives underground and can bloom again in future years.
A repellent smell designed to attract
Tom Clark, director and curator of the Mount Holyoke College Botanic
Garden, said the plant’s infamous odor serves an important evolutionary
purpose and has inspired a wide range of descriptions from visitors.
“A few people who have come in since have described the smell as being
unbearable, tangy, like a trash can — it’s overwhelming,” Clark said.
“But that odor is there for a purpose. It’s there to attract
pollinators, flies in particular.”
The timing of corpse flower blooms is difficult to predict, often
following years of dormancy. Over the past six weeks, Pangy grew
rapidly, at times shooting up several inches a day before unfurling. The
flower finally opened overnight Monday, and he and other staffers were
met with its powerful scent as soon as they got to work the next day.
“Walking through the front door, we could smell it,” he said. “As we
walked back to the greenhouse where it’s growing, the smell became
stronger and stronger. It was just overwhelming — literally unbearable —
to be back there with it. If you weren’t aware of this plant and walked
into the greenhouse, you’d say, ‘What died in here?’”
From shock to wonder
“I didn’t know what the name meant. I thought it would smell like a
corpse, but I don’t know what a corpse smells like,” said Mount Holyoke
student Maheen Siddiqi, laughing after waiting in a growing line of
people hoping to take a whiff of the flower. “And I smelled it and it
smelled like really bad eggs or sulfur or something.”
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Students take a selfie with the blooming corpse flower known as "Pangy"
at the Talcott Greenhouse on the campus of Mount Holyoke College in
South Hadley, Mass., Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Leah
Willingham)
Student Bryn Wickere said the smell was less overwhelming than
anticipated. Still, Wickere described the towering bloom as
“magnificent,” noting its deep color and velvety texture.
“I was actually expecting the smell to fill up the whole room, but
it was more when you got up close and personal with her,” Wickere
said.
Others found the smell more familiar than shocking.
“I would say it smells kind of like a compost pile, a little bit
like a working farm,” said Caroline Murray, a Mount Holyoke senior.
“I’m from Vermont, so I’m very used to the smell of the farm and
manure.”
The spectacle drew visitors from near and far, including Michael
Breton, who drove two hours and took a vacation day to see the bloom
after tracking news alerts for years.
“If you see a news article, and it’s from two days ago, it’s gone,
so you gotta run quick,” he said. He compared the scent to “a stinky
diaper that’s been left out in the sun,” adding that despite the
odor, the plant was “bright, beautiful and colorful. It’s a lovely
plant.”
A fleeting bloom, an enduring mission
Clark said the bloom highlights the broader mission of the Talcott
Greenhouse, which he called a “plant museum” that houses about 2,000
plant species — a small fraction of the estimated 350,000 to 400,000
plant species worldwide.
He called the event a “special opportunity" to impress upon visitors
the diversity of the plant world, and some of the amazing
adaptations species have to survive in their environment in unique
ways.
By midday Tuesday, the odor had begun to dissipate as greenhouse
vents were opened, offering visitors a less intense — though still
memorable — experience. After the brief flowering period, the plant
will gradually deteriorate and collapse. Because corpse flowers
cannot pollinate themselves, seeds will only form if pollen from
another titan arum is available.
For Namuuna Negi, a Mount Holyoke junior, the fleeting nature of the
bloom added to the experience.
“The impermanence of it, I think. People like to be in on what’s
happening,” Negi said. “If they hear something’s going to die soon,
they want to go see it before that happens so they can talk about it
later.”
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