A line of people snaking through the Spheres on Wednesday and Thursday this week ended with a photo op on an upper floor of Amazon’s unique Seattle office building. But employees and members of the public weren’t looking to pose with some notable human celebrity. They were here to see a plant.
“Morticia 2.0,” the latest version of the tech company’s famed Amorphophallus titanum — or corpse flower — was in rare bloom, and the window of opportunity to take a look, catch a whiff, and snap a pic was short.
Amazon first alerted employees internally on Wednesday that the large plant would be blooming that night and set up an online reservation system that was also open to the public — and quickly filled up. People waited until after midnight for the chance to get in the Spheres.
Crowds were back again on Thursday, and by the time GeekWire visited at 4 p.m., the line still stretched over multiple floors of the plant-filled Spheres. A live Twitch stream was broadcasting a view of the plant for those who couldn’t get in.
“It’s cool to see. It’s cool that Amazon has one,” said Kim Bruzda, an Amazon employee who works in Redmond, Wash., and made the trip over to Seattle to see Morticia 2.0. “I was hoping to capture more of the smell,” she added, as the stronger odor the plant gives off was fading with the afternoon light.
A home gardener, Bruzda has 60 of her own houseplants. “They’re everywhere,” her husband Alex laughed as he stood in line with his wife — again, surrounded by plants.
‘It’s our mascot for getting people interested in plants.’
— Ben Eiben, Spheres program manager
The couple eventually made it to Morticia 2.0’s staging area, handed a smartphone to a Spheres docent, stood next to the plant for 15 seconds, smiled for a photo, and off they went.
Amazon actually has many of the plants in its care and has successfully pollinated them over the years. Morticia 2.0 came from the same corm that produced “Morticia,” which bloomed and drew a big crowd back in October 2018. After that came “Bellatrix,” which grew to 6-feet tall in 2019.
The plant has the largest unbranched flowering structure in the world, according to Amazon, and takes a minimum of seven years to produce its first bloom, which only lasts about 48 hours.
When in bloom, the plant gives off a putrid odor that gives it the corpse flower name. It can heat up to 98 degrees, which helps attract pollinators such as flies and carrion beetles.
Ben Eiben has worked on Amazon’s horticulture team for six years and is now program manager for the Spheres. He’s witnessed the three bloom events for the corpse flower and was surprised by this year’s crowds. He thought maybe a couple hundred people would turn out.
“I just think there’s a real curiosity for the general public,” Eiben said. “We love it from a horticulture perspective, because it’s our mascot for getting people interested in plants.”
Eiben said Morticia 2.0 was definitely smellier earlier on Thursday morning, but he likened the smell more to rotting cabbage.
“It doesn’t smell like straight roadkill,” he said. “But it can be overpowering and eye watering.”
Amorphophallus titanum is native to Indonesian island Sumatra and has become a popular specimen at botanical gardens around the world. Eiben first saw one bloom when he worked at Atlanta Botanical Garden in 2004.
“I want to see one in the wild. That’s on my bucket list,” he said. “My partner and I are planning to go to Borneo and Sumatra in 2024 and I want to try to line it up.”
The plant is a member of the aroid family and Amazon’s Lucas Garcia is in charge of that group for the Spheres. Standing outside the building Thursday as people still milled around the plaza, he was excited that something he helped raise was garnering so much attention.
“I knew this was a popular event before I was really into plants,” Garcia said. “Now being in the industry it’s crazy to see firsthand. I was here [Wednesday] past midnight, and people were still in line. It’s pretty remarkable to see how much of an impact this plant can have on people.”
Garcia spends his days at Amazon’s support greenhouse east of Seattle where he cares for plants and grows specimens like Morticia 2.0 to be nice and big.
Asked if he had a green thumb, Garcia said, “I think I have a green body.”
