We, at the Muttart Conservatory, are just as curious as all of you. We determined, on Saturday April 6, 2013, that Putrella would be a flower and not vegetative. We were given a timeline of 2-3 weeks by a contact with considerable experience growing Corpse Flowers in indoor settings. When growth stops and the plant no longer gets taller, it usually opens within 48-72 hours. While our contact is the current world record holder for the largest Amorphophallus titanum, even he doesn’t have a definite answer. The Amorphophallus tends to open at night.

That is up to the plant to decide. There is no absolute height minimum or maximum that we can quote. The Amorphophallus Titanum uses a huge amount of energy to reach a height and width that make it the world's tallest flower, averaging six to seven inches of growth per day.

The current world record amorphophallus measured 3.1 m (10 ft 2.25 in) tall in June 2010. Of course, we at the Muttart Conservatory are hoping we'll break this record.

A reasonable estimate is 24-72 hours, but we really don't have a specific time frame. Time is of the essence for the Amorphophallus Titanum. Follow the Muttart Conservatory on Facebook, for the most up to date information.

There are other corpse flowers that have flowered every second year from initial bloom year (indoors). However there are many variables regarding how many times it is able to bloom. Once it flowers it will go back into a dormant stage and, after enough energy is acquired for it to bloom again, it will.

It smells the strongest when it first opens and will continue to smell into the next day and possibly linger for the following day.

It won’t be able to self-pollinate. We won't be pollinating it as we don't have pollen to do so.

The plant is indigenous to Sumatra, a western island of Indonesia. The oldest systematic record of the plant was in 1692, but the first documented flowering in North America was at the New York Botanical
Garden in 1937.