On Thursday, August 10, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined Brooklyn Botanic Garden President Scot Medbury to kick off the smell-ebration of “Baby,” the 10-year-old Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the titan arum or “corpse flower,” one of the world’s rarest plants, currently on display in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Besides being one of the fastest growing, largest blooming, plants on Earth, the corpse flower emits a strong odor to attract fly, beetle, and sweet bee pollinators. The last time a corpse flower bloomed in New York was in 1939 in the Bronx.

“The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn the last time one of these flowers bloomed in New York, and like the day the Dodgers left, it still stinks,” said Borough President Markowitz.