Rare Corpse Flower Set To Bloom Any Day At MSU

EAST LANSING (WWJ) - The smell of death will soon be in the air at Michigan State University with the blooming of a very rare flower known as the corpse flower.

The name pretty much describes how it smells, like rotting flesh, notes Michigan State plant biologist Peter Carrington.

"People and children getting a whiff of this thing describing the smell as anything from a large pile of badly maintained dirty socks -all the way up to rotting flesh," Carrington told WWJ's Zahra Huber.

"It manufactures both the scent of decaying meat and it has a huge almost upside down skirt-like brack that surrounds this whole central column of the flower. The red color sort of mimics the color of meat as well," said Carrington.

So how strong is that scent?

"Well, it varies a bit, and ours hasn't actually opened fully yet to the extent of actually making the smell, yet, but my expectation is, at its peak, you will be able to smell it when you enter the room - no problem."

Carrington says the flower last bloomed in 2010 and in 1995.

People can check out the flower at the conservatory and more information at Pure Michigan!