Rare Corpse Flower Bloom In San Francisco Brings Out Enthusiasts Of The Fetid Flora

CBS Bay Area

June 26, 2026

Botanical enthusiasts were in for a notoriously stinky experience at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on Thursday.

One of the conservatory's aptly-named corpse flowers - the massive bloom which smells like rotting meat - began its unusual blooming process Thursday. Lovingly dubbed Scarlet, the conservatory's specimen only blooms once every three to five years, and for just two days.

After-hours tickets from 5 to 10 p.m. were made available for the popular event to give people an extra chance to glimpse and sniff the endangered flower, which smells most potently the first night it emerges. Native to the steep hillsides of tropical rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, the corpse flower is the largest unbranched inflorescence - many tiny flowers acting as one - in the plant kingdom. Its brief blooms can grow up to 10 feet tall.

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