Most flowers smell sweet. But the corpse flower smells yucky. Some people say that it stinks like rotting meat. Other people say it smells like old socks.
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP via Getty Images (Corpse Flower); Shutterstock.com (Bones, Child); Harold Cunningham/Getty Images (Botanic Garden)
This Plant Stinks
From the March/April 2025 Issue
Learning Objective: Students will get information about a corpse flower through text and images.
The corpse flower is tall. It can grow to be as tall as an elephant. There is a big yellow spike in the center. That is where the smell comes from.
- It grows to 12 feet tall.
- This is the smelly part!
- It has big purple leaves.
Would you want to smell one? This stinky flower blooms only once every 7 to 10 years. And the flower lasts only a day or two. So if you want to sniff it, you have to hurry.
Corpse flowers don’t grow in the wild here. But many botanic gardens have them.
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Skills Activities
Answer Key
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About the Article
English Language Arts Focus
Nonfiction Text Features: Photographs & Labels
Science Focus
Characteristics of plants
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Implementation
- Whole group
- Small group
Pairings and Text Connections
- From the Storyworks 1 archive: “Picture This!: Do You Think I’m Creepy?” (October/November 2023); “What Do You Think?: Frowny Frogs, Cute or Gross?” (February 2023)
- Suggested books: Flowers Are Pretty . . .Weird! by Rosemary Mosco
Before-Reading Resources
- Vocabulary Slideshow (5 minutes) rotting, spike, blooms, botanic gardens
- Video: What Are Plants? (5 minutes) Build background knowledge on plants
Suggested Reading Focus
Getting information from text and images/labels (20 minutes)
- Begin by reminding children that we get information from pictures. Take a close look at the photo of the corpse flower. Ask children to share what they notice about it.
- Read the mini article and photo caption aloud for information about corpse flowers. What do people think they smell like? (rotting meat or old socks) How often do they bloom? (every 7 to 10 years) Where do they grow here? (botanic gardens)
- Put your finger on a label, and have children do the same. Ask children what labels do. (They point to a part of the picture and tell us more about it.) Have children follow the arrows with their fingers. Then read the labels together.
- Finally, discuss what children learned from both the picture and the words in the article. What can they recall? What was most interesting? You can also have children vote on whether they would want to visit a corpse flower.
After-Reading Skills Practice
Skills: Labeling; opinion writing (15 minutes)
Text-to-Speech