Photos | Corpse flower blooms for first time in 4 years

The UC Santa Cruz Arboretum welcomes visitors on Sunday to view a corpse flower, which bloomed late Saturday. The titan arum — otherwise known as the corpse flower — is native to Indonesia, Sumatra and Borneo and is one of the largest flowers in the world. When it opens, it emits an odor like that of rotting flesh, attracting flies and beetles that pollinate the flowers. The plant, which stays in bloom for only 24 to 48 hours, blooms by storing massive amounts of energy underground for years, then rapidly erupting into a giant, heat-generating, foul-smelling structure to trick insects into pollinating it. It spends most of its life underground as a massive, heavy tuber-like stem called a corm. For 7 to 10 years initially — and every few years afterward — the corm sends up a single, massive, tree-like leaf that gathers energy from the sun through photosynthesis and funnels it back down into the corm which can weigh over 200 pounds. The last time a corpse flower bloomed at the arboretu