The very rare and very peculiar Amorphophallus titanum is about to bloom at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers.

SF Weekly delivers the odorous news of the "Terra the Titan," a plant that blooms only once every three or four years — and only for a day. Even more curious, the blooming plant has the distinct smell of rotting flesh or rotting meat. Naturally, everyone is super psyched to smell this beast.

The Conservatory is currently is possession of "Terra the Titan" and expects her to blossom sometime between June 13 and June 15. Basically, San Francisco flower nerds are anticipating the birth of extreme funk.

Explains the Weekly:

The Amorphophallus titanum grows in the rainforests on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, and it looks like it was sent by a race of sentient plants to colonize Earth. A relative of the calla lily and the cuckoo pint that can grow to nine feet, it's the largest flower in the world, and its unpleasant aroma is an evolutionary adaptation meant to attract beetles that feast on carrion, in order to help pollinate it. Even in the wild, these flowers bloom rarely, so when a cultivated specimen flowers, it's even more exciting — especially for fans of rotting fish, sweaty sock, human feces, Limburger cheese, and everything else that goes into its rich smell.

Okay well now we kinda have to smell this.

The University of California, Berkeley Botanical Garden had a "corpse flower" of its own briefly bloom in 2015 and at least 1,000 folks lined-up for the stinky opportunity to get a whiff.

The Conservatory's fetid treasure comes courtesy of Mission resident Sidney Price, who grew three Amorphophallus titanums in his bathroom until they became too big to handle in 2014. "These beautiful plants are getting destroyed in their native habitat. It was worth trying to grow them, and my bathroom, it turns out, was perfect!" Price explained to the Weekly.

While it comes as no surprise that something smelly grew inside of a Mission District residential restroom, we're betting hundreds of San Franciscans will happily line up to inhale a rare sniff of the blooming "Terra the Titan."

Related: Reservoir Algae Bloom Causes Foul Tasting, Smelling Tap Water

Your nose knows that a rotten egg smell reeked up San Francisco and the greater Bay Area for two days in late December of 2016, and that the prime suspect was the Chevron refinery in Richmond who engaged in some “flaring”, or burning off of unrefined fuels to relieve pressure on gas lines. Chevron initially did not report the flaring incident, then admitted to the flaring but insisted that it had nothing to do with the outbreak of a sulphur-like smell. But a regional air board has investigated the matter and determined that it was definitely Chevron who cut the cheese.

KQED reports that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has completed their investigation into the odiferous outbreak, and has concluded that the Chevron refinery was indeed the culprit. According to KRON 4, there were at least 69 (heh!) reports of the rotten egg smell submitted to PG&E on December 28 and 29.

The Air Quality Management District Issued four violations to the Chevron refinery on Tuesday. ABC 7 describes two of the violations as “excess levels of hydrogen sulfide detected by ground-level monitoring equipment,” whereas the other two violations are for creating a public nuisance. The district’s findings are based on analysis of air quality monitors, data from a wastewater plant near the refinery. and weather patterns from the dates in question.

“We will be seeking the maximum penalties available to us for this incident," the district’s CEO Jack Broadbent said in a statement. “In addition to being cited for this incident, Chevron will be required to make changes to their operations to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

But hold on to the clothespin on your nose — Chevron disputes these findings and continues to basically deny guilt. “This is a complex issue,” Chevron spokesperson Leah Casey said in an email to KQED. “But given the small amount of H2S (hydrogen sulfide) released, the 11-mile distance across the Bay, and the wide geography of the odor complaints, we believe it is unlikely that the flaring was the source of the odors.”

Keep in mind that a separate KQED report from early January found that during the late December dates in question, toxic gas levels near the Chevron refinery exceeded local air regulation restrictions and were “so intense in one instance that it maxed out the company’s pollution monitoring equipment."

This issuing of citations is not the final step in the smell-shaming process. While district officials insist they will seek the maximum possible fine, that fine will actually be determined through a settlement process with Chevron. The Chronicle reports that “the violations come with hefty fines — which can run thousands of dollars for severe violations”, though thousands of dollars does not sound particularly “hefty” to a multinational energy corporation whose current market capitalization is about $199 billion.

Related: San Francisco Beset By Mystery Stench

The strange weird bad smell of unclear origin that had residents causing a stink of their own yesterday is back. They were crying foul in neighborhoods as far apart as the Bayview, the Tenderloin, Nob Hill, the Marina, SoMa, the Mission, and the Outer Sunset and Richmond, but now it's just Tenderloin and Nob Hill residents calling SFPD to make note of the mysterious, sulfurous odor, which KTVU writes is affecting the 800 O'Farrell block and the 900 Mason block near the Fairmont Hotel.

The odiferous events of yesterday had fingers pointing: PG&E said it had nothing to do with the smell, the Fire Department didn't have the answers, and the Coast Guard said no spills in the Bay, that they knew of, had occurred to cause the stench. But now Bay Area Air Quality Management District spokesperson Lisa Fasano tells KQED that a Chevron facility all the way in Richmond could be to blame. “We're investigating the Chevron flaring incident … to determine if it could be the potential source,” Fasano said.

Chevron, KQED writes, did not report the flaring incident initially but later acknowledged it had occurred. They don't, however, think they have anything to do with the smell in San francisco

“We experienced some minor flaring,” Chevron spokeswoman Leah Casey said in an email. “Our initial investigation shows no connection between the flaring incident and the odors recently detected in San Francisco.”

Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services, also expressed skepticism to KQED. "The distance is about 11 miles and it would have been very diluted," said Null.

And yet, another round of complaints were received by PG&E last night after 11 p.m. hours after a second incidence of flaring at Chevron. The air district is reportedly investigating that incident, too.

One further possibility that KQED floats is that the West Contra Costa Sanitary Landfill is to blame. "There have been odor complaints the last few months coming from the landfill,” Randy Sawyer, the county's chief environmental health and hazardous materials, wrote in an email to KQED. “They have material that is composting and has turned anaerobic. This becomes very odorous.”

Previously: San Francisco Beset By Mystery Stench

Apparently unaware of the truism "the smeller's the feller," at least 50 San Franciscans contacted officials Wednesday morning complaining about a (new) stinky smell in our city.

According to Pacific Gas and Electric spokesperson J.D. Guidi, calls complaining about an odor akin to rotten eggs or sulfur started rolling in at around 2 a.m. from area residents who feared some sort of gas leak. San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson Jonathan Baxter says that they got calls reporting the strong scent too, from folks in neighborhoods as disparate as the Bayview, the Tenderloin, Nob Hill, the Marina, SoMa, the Mission, and the Outer Sunset and Richmond.

The smell drifted away by 7 a.m., leaving behind a mystery. Guidi says it wasn't his company, and that the stink wasn't "related to PG&E facilities." When asked if any PG&E facilities had beans last night, Guidi remained silent.

Baxter also says that SFFD investigators couldn't find an origin of the smell, but said that it doesn't appear to have caused any threat to public safety or health.

(Remember that line the next time someone overreacts when you have gas. "Lighten up, Francis, it's not like my flatulence is causing a threat to public safety or health.")

The Chron reports that the Coast Guard says that they don't believe there were any spills in the area that could have caused the stink, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District says they're equally stumped.

So what was it? Are we smelling, as Fox News appears to believe, the sulfuric stench of hell opening beneath our heathen city? Or did San Francisco just let loose a collective fart, a final rectal gasp befitting this shitshow of a year? According to Guidi, PG&E will keep its eye (nose?) on the air, even as Baxter says the SFFD will keep on seeking the stink's source on the ground.

Related: Fox News Gloats That San Francisco Is Going Down The Toilet With Higher Crime, Etc.

Late last night, according to SFist readers and KCBS, San Francisco was blanketed with a malodorous odor, stretching all the way from the Outer Richmond to the Financial District to the Excelsior.

One readers reported: "Dude, San Francisco smells like shit all of a sudden. Sure none of the sewers are leaking? Maybe a citywide Marijuana pot growing operation? Unannounced bug spray?"

And another griped: "Ugh, why does the entire city smell literally like shit right now? From the Financial District to the Inner Sunset, it smells like a freshly-fertilized field from my Wisconsin youth.

Again: "OK, according to Twitter, I'm not going crazy. People in the Marina and Excelsior are smelling it, too."

And: "I smelled it too in the Inner Sunset. I walked outside this afternoon and started dragging my shoes thinking I'd stepped in something. It's really really foul. It seemed worse when I was walking west and the wind was blowing off the ocean than when I was coming back east and there was less breeze."

According to KCBS, calls came in from the Sunset and Richmond districts reporting the stench. "A city spokesman said the sewage treatment plant didn't report having any problems and that everything appeared to be functioning normally. A Public Utilities Commission spokesman did say that he smelled something unusual in the Civic Center area."

A couple of theories, suggests KTVU: the cleaning sewer lines near Mission Bay, and "a red tide or algae bloom along the coast that might be the culprit."

Goodbye, Ed Jew's attorney Steven Gruel! The revolving door that is beleaguered former District 4 Supervisor Ed Jew's legal team spins once again, depositing the pugnacious Mr. Gruel on the street and leaving the team's latest addition Stuart Hanlon (hired to replace Bill Fazio in the state criminal case) in charge of all of Ed's legal matters. Gruel, as you may recall, was handling Ed's case on the city ethics charges and the federal racketeering claims, but now Hanlon will have all of Ed's cases. Busy man, Stuart Hanlon.

We'll miss Mr. Gruel, who reliably provided this column with a vast cornucopia of material, from the time Gruel accused City Attorney Dennis Herrera of racism because Ed Jew's "neighbors" were white or claiming it was unconstitutional to bring ethics charges against Ed, all the way back to saying it was okay for Ed to go to China when all this news broke. We're very sorry to see you go, Mr. Gruel!

Gruel, for what it's worth, says communications between him and Ed were okay (in contrast to former attorney Bill Fazio, who had to quit because Ed stopped speaking to him), but that he and Ed were starting to have "clear differences of opinion" about how to proceed in the case. Gruel declined to explain further what those differences were, citing legal ethics rules, but said, "I was hired to go to war and that's essentially what I was doing. He wants to view other litigation strategies in lieu of straight hardball." Do you smell a plea bargain coming up?

-- Smell that? It's the stench of awards season underway. And the San Francisco Film Critics Circle nominees are... [Hartlaub, Maximum Strength Mick]

-- Rincon Hill? Is fit to be tied. [Curbed]

-- The Hayward fault is coming to get you, us. [The Snitch]

-- Mark and Carole and Tim and SFist. [SFBG]

-- "[C]od sperm crostini." (Also: barf.) [Eater]

-- Will you buy us this incredibly well lit house? [The Front Steps]

-- That Giuliani guy was in SF. [SFGate]

-- Sandoval to support... [FCJ]

-- ...Daly's affordable housing measure. [Daly Blog]

Oh man, are you kidding? This is terrible. Not to get all tugging-the-heart strings today, but this spill is much worse than initially reported yesterday. This oil covered bird above was found at Fort Baker cove in Sausalito today. It seems that the Marin Headlands are getting crazy sloshed with oil on their shores. (The aerial shots of the spill on SFGate are jaw-dropping.)

A Golden Gate National Recreation Area ranger claims that the entire area is covered in oil, "you can smell it. This whole area is closed."

So, two things: one, residents who find birds covered with oil should call 877-823-6926. And two, are there any clean-up efforts going on that we should know about? Like, know about right now? Some readers have asked and we'd love to give you more info. We'll snoop around and try uncovering scheduled efforts, but if any of you have scheduled info on volunteering clean-up, let us know. Please.

Your Black Muslim Bakery update: the business is being liquidated in an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding (they have almost $1 million in debt) after a number of unnamed potential buyers dropped out, and the 19-year-old arrested for shooting journalist Chauncey Bailey now says (video clip) he was beaten and coerced into a false confession to the murder. The Oakland PD homicide officer assigned to the case says that's false and they have a taped confession where alleged shooter Devaundre Broussard calmly and openly discussing the facts of the case. Meanwhile, Rep. Barbara Lee is now saying she regrets having supported Your Black Muslim Bakery in the past.

And it turns out what everyone thought was a raw sewage spill on 880 this morning near Fremont was in fact milk. Lots of spilled milk doesn't smell so great either.

The SFPD arrested the guy who murdered the anti-crime activist in the Haight, Joe Konopka, in an S&M session gone wrong. They believe Konopka, who was found handcuffed, choked to death on plastic covering his face. After Konopka died, the murderer took his laptop, jewelry, and cell phone before fleeing the scene.

Does anyone know what happened at 16th and South Van Ness Wednesday night? We walked by there around 9 p.m. and there were like eight cop cars, an ambulance, and two fire trucks at the gas station, with lights flashing and sirens going. We can't find any reports about it online but now we're totally curious.

And this is sort of out of our coverage area, but you know we have a morbid fascination with animal hoarders. A woman near Scotts Valley was found with 83 cats, 3 dogs, and 2 iguanas -- and no litter boxes. Animal care and control officers reported cat feces piled up to four feet high in the small three-bedroom house, you could smell the house down the street, and one officer said he just threw away all his clothes after cleaning the place out (good move). They caught 33 of the cats, have set humane traps to catch the remaining 50, and the woman is still living in the house. She told the officers that she'd gotten all the cats from her work with local rescue groups, and all of them were spayed or neutered. Wow -- it's one thing to get to 83 cats by getting two and not spaying or neutering them, but it is entirely another to go out and affirmatively 83 cats.

Picture of one of the two iguanas confiscated by the Scotts Valley SPCA from the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Campus tree residency news! At Cal, it turns out those people living in the trees to protest the UC's plan to cut them down themselves did significant damage to the trees in question by cutting off the tops of the trees to put in their sleeping platforms. Ah, the sweet smell of irony. Meanwhile, at rival Stanford, they've finally evicted a veteran who's been living in the tree grove off Palm Drive for almost 10 years. (Does anyone actually pay to live at Stanford anymore? Goodness.)

In San Mateo, they're investigating claims that a police deputy was busted in the act in a county courthoouse. The deputy was busted by a court reporter, who saw a pair of male buttocks dashing down a back hallway. No one would go on the record, except for a spokesperson for a judge on that floor, who said it definitely didn't happen in that judge's courtroom. People are wondering if the sheriff can really make a fair ruling on this, given that the sheriff was recently himself busted at a brothel in Las Vegas.

And maybe it's not your dryer after all. Two cats in Los Altos have brought home, one by one, seventeen odd socks over the last few weeks. After flyering their neighborhood ("Neighbor, are you losing socks?"), they've figured out someone has a bag of laundry in their driveway (though that person hasn't come by to reclaim the socks, and refused to comment to the newspaper when they called.) One of the cats' owners notes there's a bag of some other laundry in that neighbor's driveway too. "I just hope the cats don't bring home the underwear." Ah, it reminds us of the Beanie-baby stalking cat in the East Bay around Christmas of last year.