The Denver Botanic Garden has announced that its corpse flower is exhibiting all the signs related to its eventual death.
According to The Denver Post, garden officials said the flower is almost entirely closed and its signature smell is gone as well. The rare flower is only known to bloom between 24 and 48 hours, giving off an odor that earns the plant its name.
The Denver Botanic Garden set an attendance record on Wednesday when about 12,000 visitors paid to see the corpse flower in its peak bloom. The spike in visitors continued into Thursday with 9,000 entrants, but things will likely start to normalize for the garden.
"We don't anticipate many (more) people," Erin Bird, a spokeswoman for the gardens, told The Post Friday.
Live Science reported corpse plants can take up to 15 years to get to its first bloom, and the Denver Botanic Gardens' was 13 years old when it reached the milestone.
"Around the first of June, we realized that it was not a new leaf emerging," Aaron Sedivy, a horticulturalist at the gardens, told Live Science. "It was definitely a flower bud.
"We had a growth chart we were comparing it with - just one - and we had a few plants that had near-daily photos of their progression."
He said the flower measured five feet and three inches on Tuesday, which was when the gardens stated it began its bloom.
"This is the biggest single day in the gardens' history," Bird told The Los Angeles Times. "I think human curiosity, especially in gross things, has really helped."
