Lifestyle

Smell that? A rare corpse flower is about to bloom at the Huntington

Published

2 years ago

July 11, 2024

Smell that? A rare corpse flower is about to bloom at the Huntington

It’s sweaty stinky time again at the Huntington Library, Art Gallery, and Botanic Gardens. One of its rare corpse flowers is about to bloom, in all its putrescence. In the next 10 to 12 days, expect visitors to be lined up to enter the Huntington’s sauna-like viewing area in San Marino to give this giant, fantastically weird tropical plant a sniff.

Corpse flowers (Amorphophallus titanum) are native to the rain forests of Sumatra in Indonesia, so they like it hot and steamy. They also bloom once every four to six years in the wild for only 24 hours before they start closing again, so viewing windows are short and rare.

If you miss seeing this one in person, you’re in luck. The Huntington has 43 corpse flowers in its collection, which spend most of their time in a greenhouse removed from public view. Over time, the staff has developed ways to coax the plants into blooming every two to three years, said Brandon Tam, associate curator of the Huntington’s orchid (and corpse flower) collection. With so many plants, there are usually a few primed to bloom every year.

In 2023, for instance, the Huntington had four plants bloom between July and October, Tam said. And one of last year’s bloomers, named Stankosaurus Rex for its massive 8-foot height, is now fruiting, so it looks like a tall upright club covered with plump crimson orbs.

The Huntington has had many corpse flowers fruit since its first display in 1999, and it’s used the seeds from those fruits to grow new plants for its collection and for other botanic gardens that want their own corpse flowers. But this is the first time the Huntington has been able to show off a blooming plant next to one that is fruiting, Tam said.

Curator Brandon Tam stands next to a blooming corpse flower in 2023 that was named Allan after Ken’s best friend from last year’s wildly popular “Barbie” movie.

(The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens)

The flower’s fruit is the favored food of the rhinocerus hornbill but is toxic to humans, Tam said, so don’t try to sample it. Also, the flower gets pollinated by the insects attracted to its rotten smell, “typically sweat bees, flesh flies and carrion beetles who enjoy the pungent odor,” he said.

The pollinators are usually insects looking for the decaying carcasses of animals to lay eggs on, Tam said, “which is why they’re looking for stinky things. The flower is trying to mimic that odor of a dead carcass, and its entire base is a dark maroon red to mimic bloody carcasses of dead animals. Plants are just so fascinating, especially this one.”

As for the flower’s stench, uh, “fragrance,” some people equate it to rotting meat or stinky gym socks, but it seems to change depending on the sniffer, said Keisha Raines, the Huntington’s communications associate. “To me, it smells like a really bad trash can with heavy cabbage smells,” she said. “I used to work at a vegetarian restaurant in high school, and that flower smells like the trash there the day before it was collected.”

Tam believes the flower will bloom in the next 10 to 12 days. It’s hard to precisely predict when, he said, because its bloom is affected by the weather. “The hotter it is, the faster it blooms.” (If you want to see one bloom now, the Huntington’s website features a time lapse of the 2022 bloom.)

A closeup detail of a closed corpse flower before it blooms. (The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens)

The deep maroon skirt of a blooming corpse flower mimics the color of rotting flesh, part of its ploy, along with its putrid “fragrance,” to attract carrion-loving pollinators. (Linnea Stephan / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens)

A crowd of people gawking at a blooming corpse flower.

Typically, corpse plants bloom at night, but the Huntington’s social media team will send out updates and alerts as the time gets nearer, Tam said. You can also watch the flower’s progress on a live webcam and daily growth chart. When the bloom looks imminent, go online to get your ticket and arrive as early as you can in the morning.

The Huntington is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Monday and closed on Tuesday. (Tam said he feels fairly certain this flower won’t bloom on a Tuesday.)

If that suspense is not enough, the Huntington is also asking the public to help name this year’s first blooming corpse plant. One of last year’s plants was dubbed “Allan the Amorphophallus,” in honor of Allan from the popular “Barbie” movie, said Raines. (Allan is Ken’s awkward best friend, which seemed fitting for a lovable stinky plant, “and we were in a very Barbie state of mind last year,” she said.)

People should post name ideas on the Huntington’s Instagram page, watch their social media and bring a fan for visiting the corpse flower in person. That’s because it gets steamy and hot inside the conservatory, Tam said, to the point that people actually walk outside for a little relief. With highs around the Huntington forecast to cool to the high 80s from the mid-90s next week, that could be a blessing for visitors.

Lifestyle

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Published

4 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.

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Kate Green/Getty Images

Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.

Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes in Hamnet.

But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”

The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.

Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.

Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks announced the 2026 Oscar nominees early Thursday morning in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 15.

“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.

Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

Interview highlights

On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies

I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …

The Real 'Hamnet' Died Centuries Ago, But This Novel Is Timeless

The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.

On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up

I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.

On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance

I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.

On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant

I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.

Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.

I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.

On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works

I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Lifestyle

‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Published

5 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Evil Dead’ Star Bruce Campbell Reveals He Has Cancer

Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer

Published
March 2, 2026
6:15 PM PST

Bruce Campbell has revealed he has cancer, but says it’s a type that’s treatable, though not curable.

“The Evil Dead” actor shared the news Monday in a message to fans, writing, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that — I’m having one of those.” He continued, “It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too.”

bruce campbell cancer announcement

Campbell said he wouldn’t go into further detail about his diagnosis, but explained his work schedule will be changing. “Appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment,” he wrote, adding he plans to focus on getting “as well as I possibly can over the summer.”

As a result, Campbell says he has to cancel several convention appearances this summer, noting, “Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand.”

bruce campbell evil dead everett 2

He says his plan is to tour this fall in support of his new film, “Ernie & Emma,” which he stars in and directs.

Ending on a determined note, Campbell told fans, “I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch … and I expect to be around a while.”

Lifestyle

‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Published

16 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Neve Campbell in Scream 7.

Paramount Pictures

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Paramount Pictures

The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.

Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture