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Update: Rare stinky flower expected to bloom Tuesday night at Miami University

Credit Jack Keegan / Miami University
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Miami University
As of Sunday, March 31, "Botany Big Ben Harrison" was 132 cm tall.

Update: Botanist Jack Keegan reports the 'corpse flower' is now blooming. The flower typically blooms for only a few hours. Miami does not plan to pollinate it so Keegan says tonight's the night to get to Oxford if you want to see it in bloom. Keegan is expecting large crowds. The Belk Greenhouse will be open until at least 11 p.m. Tuesday.

Original story posted: April 2, 2013 at 5:17 p.m.

A rare flower is just about ready to bloom at Miami University and unlike its relative the calla lily, you may want to hold your nose when you see the Titan Arum.

"Currently it is okay," says Miami Botany instructor Jack Keegan. "But later it lives up to its name, corpse flower. It really smells like rotting flesh."

Keegan says only around 150 corpse flowers have ever bloomed in cultivation, and this is just the fourth ever in Ohio.

At five feet tall, it's one of the largest flowers in the world.

"If you really are interested in plants or interested, to an extent, in the bizarre, it is really something to see," he says.

Miami's Belk greenhouse is open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Keegan says it will stay open late on the day the flower blooms.

Getting there:

The Belk greenhouse is on Miami's Western Campus (past the Art Museum) attached to Boyd Hall.

Click here for campus maps.

To view the webcam, click here.

Finally, here's a time lapse video of The Ohio State University's Titan Arum blooming.

Senior Editor and reporter at WVXU with more than 20 years experience in public radio; formerly news and public affairs producer with WMUB. Would really like to meet your dog.