About five years ago this nice little old lady that comes to our office brought me a small aloe looking plant. She said her mother had given it to her forty years ago, and it had very beautiful blooms so she gave me a cutting to bring some life to my office.
I put it into a pot, and once a week I watered it, and it surprised by living and thriving.
About three weeks ago, it put forth a pod which began to grow and grow and showed signs of turning into something that might bloom, something green hollow and fist-sized.
Today, I’m on the phone, and in the reflection of my computer screen I see something move behind me. I turn around and the pod is opening into a bloom before my eyes, fast enough to watch. I am horrified.
Imagine if some fat lady had been dead a week floating in a pond and she suddenly walked out of the pond, naked, and spread her legs invitingly. That’s what this bloom looked like. It’s a fetid yellow with pink lines as if it was rotten flesh with worms moving beneath the surface. The horrid center is like a black rotten, festering wound of a genitalia. It has five limbs like a starfish, or… a human. A head, two legs, two arms.
Did I mention that it smells exactly what it looks like? A week old corpse.
I looked it up, and that’s what it is, a corpse plant. Stapelia Gigantea. Right in my office. I went home during lunch and took pictures to prove it if you don’t beleive me. I don’t know how to host a picture, but I’ll email it to a nonbeleiver who can host it.
This nice little old lady… who likes me… gave me a corpse plant.
Oh, The bloom is hairy as well, kind of like an old lady’s mustache.
How cool is that?
It stinks so bad, I want to cut if off. People come into my office and look at me like I just farted. The idea that this thing took five years to bloom, and the novelty of it makes me unable to do it. So, I just worked all day with this slutty looking corpse of a flower behind me.
Nature’s wild.