When I’m out enjoying nature, the one thing that always seems to be missing is the pungent smell of rotting meat.
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Fortunately, my good friends at the Chicago Botanic Garden have plans to fill that gap by growing a gigantic “titan arum,” also known as the corpse flower because of its hideous, unspeakable smell.
Kris Jarantoski, executive vice president and director of the botanic garden in Glencoe, told the Tribune: “It’ll give us a wow factor here at the garden. It attracts a lot of people. When people see them they go, ‘Oh, wow!'”
I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge fan of saying “Oh, wow!” while simultaneously having my olfactory senses overwhelmed by a 10-foot-tall plant that smells like it ate the morgue and then burped.
The Botanic Garden’s corpse flower plan reminds me of other great foul-smelling Chicago attractions: the Museum of Contemporary Art’s unforgettable installation, “Objects That Have Been Thrown Up On”; the Garfield Park Conservatory’s holiday-themed “Spoiled Egg Nog Bog”; Michigan Avenue’s summertime “Discarded Diapers on Parade”; and, of course, the CTA’s “Mystery Substance on the Seat You’re About to Sit on that You Don’t See and Will Be Forever Haunted By.”
It’s a smelly city we live in, folks. The corpse flower is going to fit right in.