A rare corpse plant, found in Indonesia’s rainforests and transported as a seed 17 years ago to Washington State University Vancouver, will finally flower, and you’re invited to hold your nose and get up close.

The scent has been compared to smelly socks, a rotting carcass or worse. Dung beetles, flesh flies and other carnivorous insects that eat dead flesh are attracted to the odor. And so are scientists and people curious about one of the world’s largest, rarest and weirdest flowering structures.

You can see the Amorphophallus titanium plant, affectionately named Titan VanCoug, now through its bloom outside the greenhouse at the east end of the Science and Engineering Building.

Or you can watch the plant live via webcam (below) or at youtube.com/wsuvancouver as the plant grows a couple of inches a day until it works up to a full, noxious bloom.

Steve Sylvester, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at the research university, has raised the titan arum plant from seed and anticipates a bloom to arrive in the wee hours of the morning, sometime at the end of July or beginning of August.

The smell could last 24 to 48 hours.

“I’m an expectant father and I worry so much about it,“ he says. “I feel very lucky to have this plant. Maybe corpse flies will show up.”

Sylvester cultivated the plant in a pot in his office. When it grew to 10 feet tall, it was moved to the hallway then the stairwell in the science building. Recently, it was taken outside to prevent the anticipated odor from fouling offices and classrooms.

Sylvester believes his titan arum plant is the only one to bloom between Seattle and San Francisco.

His seed came from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s titan arum plant, but the plants grow naturally only in the limestone hills of Sumatra. They bloom after seven to 10 years and then once every four years over an expected 40-year lifespan.

At 17, Titan VanCoug is a late, late bloomer. The delay was because of its cloned corm (tuber) and someone overwatered it and “reset the clock,” says Sylvester.

But he never gave up hope, despite setbacks. He says the leaves kept getting larger, which signaled the corm was growing. Of his four plants in the container, one is about to bloom, the largest one is resting and two more have small leaves.

He’s monitoring the plant closely and when the green part of the unfolding spadix begins to turn purple, he’s predicting a bloom four days later.

He’s been fooled before when watching for an asymmetrical offshoot like this one, but he’s confident something stinky will show up this time.

“There’s no doubt about it,” he says. ”It’s a bloom.”

--Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.