The corpse plant (Ghastlius ohmygodius) unfurled its leaves last week and made the Gustavus Adolphus greenhouse the stinkiest spot in the state. It's a huge, ugly prong known for reeking like Jeffrey Dahmer's closet, and it hasn't released its knee-weakening perfume since 2007.
Hideous though it might be in every possible respect, it is a fascinating plant. Time-lapse photography has revealed that when the plant deploys its horrible odor, it attempts to look nonchalant, sometimes turning around as though pretending to see which other plant sliced the cheddar. This makes it one of the few plants capable of lying, the others being the Venus fly trap and the Nigerian spamweed, which tricks bees into handing over all their stored honey.
Why does it stink? Scientists have several theories.
1. It uses an overpowering aroma in the belief that it makes it more attractive to other members of its species, for purposes of facilitating reproduction. See also, young men wearing an entire can of Axe.
2. It was left here by an alien race that actually communicates via scents. Scientists working on this theory have partially decoded the message by comparing the chemicals to a numeric code based on the rate of decay of subatomic particles. So far it appears to be a really, really dirty joke.
3. The plant somehow evolved to emit an odor that attracted carrion birds that would nibble at the plant, digest it and carry its seeds to other locations. Unfortunately, this took millions and millions of years, and by then the birds had either caught on or lost interest.
If you went to see it, well, good for you. Not me. They say it smells like a rotten corpse, and you know what? I'm going to have to take their word for that, not having anything against which to measure it, aside from distant memories of college-era laundry hampers. I'm rather glad I can't identify "corpse" right off the bat. If you find yourself at the exhibit, standing next to a fellow who says, "Boy, they nailed that one, it's exactly like corpses smell," you might want to put some distance between the two of you.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858
