Flower Fans Expected To Flock To Berkeley For Once-A-Century Bloom

BERKELEY (CBS SF) - U.C. Berkeley will likely be bustling with botanists in the coming days as flower watchers await an extremely rare bloom of up to 30,000 flowers from a plant known as the Queen of the Andes.

According to the school, the bloom can shoot up to 30 feet in the air before bloom, which happens in the wild every 80 to 100 years. The 24-year-old Berkeley plant was grown from a seed taken from the mountains of Boliva and is expected to bloom on a much faster timeline than it does in the wild.

The plant, which goes by the scientific name Puya raimondii, is on display at the university's botanical gardens near the garden of old roses.

The U.C. Berkeley Botanical Garden is open to visitors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with the last visitors admitted at 4:30 p.m. The garden is closed the first Tuesday of each month.

More information on the anticipated bloom is available on through the Cal website.