A flower party

Finally! Corpse flower Lois lets her petals down for a full bloom

Lois this a.m. (Thursday)
Photo by Rachel Hanley
Lois on Wednesday
Zac Stayton watering Lois
Photo by Rachel Hanley
As the news spread that Lois was close Wednesday afternoon, the line ballooned.
Photo by Rachel Hanley
It's every corpse flower watcher for themselves.
Photo by Rachel Hanley

After weeks of waiting — and enough false alarms to make The Boy Who Cried Wolf blush — Houston's corpse flower has finally opened her petals to the world.

The full force of the rotting flesh stink is expected to last eight to 12 hours and within two days, the whole thing should be over with the corpse flower closing back up, not expected to bloom again for years and years — if ever. Lois is only the 29th corpse flower to ever bloom in the United States, the third ever in Texas.

HMNS plans to stay open around the clock until Lois is completely done doing her thing.

This corpse flower first started edging onto the public radar about three weeks ago. CultureMap was the first publication to report on the late nights at the museum on July 12. And for the last nine days and many of the nights, this rare flower basically held the fourth-largest city in the country at her unpredictable whim. HMNS opened up around the clock for many of the days, six different buttons and T-shirts were made, an anonymous Twitter star to rival BP Global PR was born and a record number of visitors poured into the museum from close and far.

On Tuesday night, HMNS abruptly changed its plans to close at midnight and went back to being open 24 hours because of the rare flower's progress. By Wednesday afternoon, HMNS horticulturist Zac Stayton declared that Lois would bloom within "24 hours." Face masks quickly became standard equipment for the most-prepared visitors.

Still, the corpse flower took its sweet time — and most people don't even know the half of it.

The HMNS has had this corpse flower — officially an Amorphophallus titanum fromI Indonesia — for six years after first acquiring the plant as a stem.

Crammed into a hallway with a skylight over head and little room for the paparazzi (both journalist professional and amateur iPhone toters) who wanted her/his picture, Lois started to make even the staunchest believer wonder if there would ever be a complete opening. Stayton admitted that there was a chance the fickle corpse flower could "abort."

No worries of that now. Just relief and plenty of stink.

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what's new at the zoo

Houston Zoo welcomes Kirby, a newly-born Asian elephant

The Houston Zoo Asian elephant herd increased by one last week.

Photo by Kevin Kendrick/Houston Zoo

Kirby is a healthy baby girl elephant!

The Houston Zoo is going to need a very big rattle for its latest addition. On Friday, November 15 at 3 pm, the zoo’s amiable Asian elephant matriarch Shanti, 34, gave birth to a baby girl named Kirby. This is Shanti’s seventh baby with longtime pachyderm boyfriend, Thailand, 58.

Kirby weighed 314 pounds at birth, quite a bit smaller than her older sibling Nelson, born in 2020, and slightly larger than her big sister Joy, born in 2017. Shanti’s pregnancy lasted 21 months, a common length for Asian elephants but still the second longest gestation in the mammal class after their African cousins.

Within six minutes, Kirby was on her feet, and she was walking within a half hour. The birth took place in the McNair Asian Elephant Habitat cow barn, where Shanti and Kirby will spend several more days before being sent out to public viewing.

The Houston Zoo’s elephant breeding program has been a vital part of increasing the Bornean elephant population since it began in 2007. Portions of entrance fees go toward the work of Dr. Nurzhafarina “Farina" Othman, who specializes in local education and activism in Borneo to ease the tensions between humans and elephants. Elephants have been known to decimate crops leading to conflict. Othman’s work has helped landowners in Borneo fund solutions that keep the elephant population alive. The zoo’s support was partially responsible for doubling the Bornean population in 2018.

Elephants have been a part of the Houston Zoo since it was founded. In 2017, the zoo opened the McNair Asian Elephant Habitat, a massive new enclosure with walkways for visitor viewing and pools for the elephants to frolic in and escape the Texas heat. The exhibit includes everything from fountains to a specialized puzzle tree that elephants can blow into for treats.

The zoo has also been on the cutting edge of animal medicine. In June, 40-year-old Asian elephant Tess was given the first ever mRNA vaccine for elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) 1A. Baylor College of Medicine pioneered this fight against a particularly deadly disease among elephants. All in all, it has been a big year for the zoo’s biggest residents.

houston zoo elephant