Monday, July 19, 2010

Another Outing: Lois




On Saturday my son and granddaughter and I went to visit Lois. Lois is a "corpse flower," or Amorphophallus titanum, which smells like rotten meat when it blooms. Exciting? Absolutely. Lois is the talk of Houston. She is a rare flower native to Sumatra. When explorers first saw this huge plant, they thought it was a man-eating flower. Only a few have ever bloomed in the U.S, and here in Houston, we've been holding our breaths, literally, as we file past Lois and wait for her to bloom. She has been a bonanza for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, with t-shirts and buttons (see my button above) and huge crowds. The museum has been open round the clock. Yes, some people come in the middle of the night. But so far she hasn't bloomed, and one columnist has suggested she may be a non-event. Nevertheless, she's the talk of the town, with her own webcam, and a lady has come with her guitar to play a song dedicated to this amazing (and still flowerless) plant. It was fun, crowded, and interesting, and as a bonus we got to go through the butterfly center on our way out.

If you want to know more about the corpse flower, visit the nuseum's website at www.hmns.org

2 comments:

Gabby said... [Reply to comment]

I was there, nana! xD I remember! It did smell bad & we had to hold our breath!(x I got some really good pics of the butterfly center, if you'd enjoy having them...?(: Mostly pics of the butterflies, jw.?(:

Michael Krieger said... [Reply to comment]

That was a fun outing. According to the Houston Chronicle, Lois is supposed to bloom today!

 

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