Monday, October 27, 2014

Purple Mums and a Corpse Flower: A Trip to the Botanical Gardens

One of my favorite places in Buffalo is the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, especially when they’re having a flower show. This time around, the showcase is one of fall’s favorite flowers, the mum.

But there’s a special guest at the mum show.

I didn’t make it to the Gardens while their original corpse flower, Morty, was in bloom in August (read about it here), I did get a chance to see Morty’s sibling – I’ll call it Morticia, because that’s what I voted for in the “name the new corpse flower” contest the Gardens is holding (and because I’m all about the Addams Family).

The Gardens purchased three corpse flower tubers in July from a nursery in Massachusetts – Morty has bloomed, while Morticia has a tree-like leaf structure. They only bloom - its stinky flower smells like rotting flesh - once every six to 10 years (that’s probably a good thing). Learn more about the corpse flower in this piece from the Gardens’ website.


Yep, it is that big.



But back to the mums. They’re absolutely beautiful, and the colors are so vibrant (especially the purple ones - my favorite color!). I can’t help but take more pictures than I really should (because then I have to go through and just pick out a few to show you!).



all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com

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