The Toronto Zoo‘s corpse flower — a plant known for its pungent, rotting meat smell — has bloomed, but curious visitors only have hours to visit a special exhibit.
“Hold your noses, Pablo is STARTING TO BLOOM!” zoo staff proclaimed on the organization’s Facebook page Thursday evening.
Zoo staff said the plant, which has been dubbed “Pablo ‘Pe-ew’caso,” will bloom for eight to 36 hours.
The facility’s curatorial gardener, Paul Gellatly, said the plant typically flowers every seven to 10 years, but the one at the zoo is just five years old.
“It is actually a threatened species from Indonesia (the island of Sumatra). There have been only about 200 of them in the entire world that have flowered in collections … so it’s a pretty big deal,” Gellatly told Global News.
“It is smaller than some of the other corpse flowers that have flowered that is due to particularly to the fact that it is so young.”
The plant attracts carrion flies and beetles for pollination while it blooms.
As a result, the Toronto Zoo extended visiting hours for those wanting to see the plant. Admission to the exhibit is $12.
— With files from Kamil Karamali and The Canadian Press