Rockford Park District’s Nicholas Conservatory and Gardens is waiting for Grimace to bloom. This plant was named Grimace following a naming contest when the plant first bloomed in August 2018.
Grimace is 23 years old and was a gift from Huntington Botanical Gardens in California in 2011. Grimace measured 80.37 inches tall and 48 inches wide in 2018, the largest bloom to date.
This kind of plant is known as the "corpse flower" because it smells like rotting meat or burnt sugar when in bloom.
In bloom, the strong smell helps attract fresh flies and carrion beetles, which pollinate the flower while they look for rotting meat.
It takes seven to 20 years for the first bloom to appear and can take three to ten more years to bloom again, and the bloom only lasts 24-48 hours.
This bloom comes at an unusual time of year as this plant, titan arum, typically blooms in the summer. Grimace last bloomed in July 2024 and measured 71.5 inches tall. Extended viewing hours will be announced as the bloom gets closer to opening.
You can view a live stream of the plant here.