SAN ANTONIO – “La Llorona” does indeed have a reason to cry. The San Antonio Zoo has announced the beginning decomposition of its corpse flower.
This past weekend, the zoo reported a “wet garbage” smell coming from the plant, indicating a partial bloom occurrence.
Recommended Videos
However, Monday the zoo announced the beginning of the decomposition of La Llorona after noticing a sagging of the spadix. Decomposition is a natural process for the flower’s life cycle.
The sagging of the spadix indicates that the flower bloom was not fully successful.
La Llorona does remain alive and can bloom again in the coming decade, SA Zoo officials said.
SA Zoo plans to take this opportunity to educate its guests, helping them understand and appreciate the entire process.
“While we noticed the plant’s flaccid spadix today prior to a full bloom, we remain encouraged about our corpse flower conservation program, which began just a few months ago at San Antonio Zoo,” said Tim Morrow, president & CEO of San Antonio Zoo “Beyond a life cycle lesson, this experience can also serve as general life lesson that even though you may not succeed on your first attempt, it doesn’t mean you are a failure - you can still bloom in the future!”
La Llorona will remain on display for the next few days. The live stream will also remain active.
Guests at the zoo can view the flower with standard admission. It is on display near the “Back From The Brink” Whooping Crane habitat.
Watch a live stream of the flower below by clicking on the player.
San Antonio Zoo remains committed to helping save this plant species from extinction and growing this conservation program in the coming years with the addition of more plants.
Morrow thanked all of the “Conservation & Research team, Horticulture, Maintenance, Guest Experiences, Education, Docents, and all the Zoo Crew that made this opportunity available to our guests.”
Read more: