The Cockrell Butterfly Center and Brown Hall of Entomology provide entertainment and education for the whole family! Discover the wonderful world of insects, with fun, interactive games and quizzes, spectacular preserved specimens, and living examples of some of the world’s largest and weirdest arthropods. Enter a stunning, three-story glass structure built around a 50-foot waterfall, a simulated tropical rainforest filled with exotic plants and hundreds of gorgeous, living butterflies. These beautiful, delicate creatures, imported from butterfly farms around the world, will delight you as they flutter through the vegetation, stop to sip nectar or fruit juices, and occasionally alight on lucky visitors. Continue downstairs to the “Insects and Us” section, where you’ll learn about beekeeping, butterfly gardening, mosquito control, and – gulp! – insects as food! Before exiting, those with toddlers in tow will want to stop off at the “Land of Beeyond” to do a puzzle or two, read an insect-themed storybook, or play in the giant beehive.
A corpse flower in full bloom; see it this weekend at HMNS! Photo used with permission of KewExplorer on Flickr.
Rare "Corpse Flower" at the Cockrell Butterfly Center! See It For Yourself
WEBCAM! See the Corpse Flower live online! The webcam will remain focused on Lois 24 hours a day until she is taken off display.
The "Corpse Flower" (Amorphophallus titanum) gets its name from the pungent stench it emits in bloom - this, combined with the flower's huge size and deep purple color, convinced the first explorers who encountered it in Sumatra to believe it was a man-eating plant! Since then, this extremely rare plant has gained celebrity status by having one of the largest, rarest, and smelliest flowers in the world. These flowers can reach heights of 7-10 ft and a diameter of 5-6 ft.
For the next week or so, you can see this incredibly rare and odorous flower for yourself in the Cockrell Butterfly Center! Follow the plant's extraordinary growth and get updated predictions for when it will be in full bloom on the HMNS blog.
“The Corpse Flower is unique because it’s totally unpredictable," said Dr. Nancy Greig, director of the Cockrell Butterfly Center. "No one really knows what triggers a given plant to flower, and a plant may only flower once in its lifetime. We’ve had ours for six years and this is the first time it has bloomed—we’re very lucky,” said Greig. “It may be the largest, smelliest flower in the world, but its beauty is unparalleled.”
Horticulturalist Zac Stayton estimates how large the corpse flower will get.
Peering through the top of the Cockrell Butterfly Center
Also included in the Butterfly Center experience is the Brown Hall of Entomology, which houses many other live insects and their relatives, including some of the world’s largest species. Check out giant horned beetles, bizarre walking sticks, hairy tarantulas, camouflaged mantids, and cuddly cockroaches in the upper level.
The plants in the Cockrell Butterfly Center are of great interest to those with horticultural leanings. You may wish to pick up a guide to the plants to help you learn more about the plants when you visit.
Ever wonder about the gorgeous plants that fill the butterfly habitat? Go behind the scenes with our director of the Cockrell Butterfly Center Nancy Greig, as she reveals one of the museum’s unseen treasures – the greenhouses located on the roof of the Museum.
Discover this hidden garden, filled with hundreds of exotic plants that are used to create our butterfly habitat – and then visit the Cockrell Butterfly Center to see how these gorgeous insects depend on these stunning plants to thrive for yourself!
Sometimes they might land on you!
Since it opened in 1994, one of the main goals of the Cockrell Butterfly Center has been to promote butterfly watching, butterfly gardening, and other aspects of butterfly conservation. Many of the flowering plants that provide nectar for the butterflies can be grown in Houston gardens, thus providing a welcoming area for these delightful and amazing creatures. Click on the above links to learn more.
Cockrell Butterfly Center Rules
No food, drinks or gum are allowed in the Butterfly Center No strollers Visitors should not touch the plants, butterflies or other animals School groups must provide a minimum of one adult for every ten children Handicapped access is available via the elevator to all three levels.
Semi-Annual Butterfly Center Plant Sales 7th floor of HMNS Parking Garage
Attract butterflies to your garden! The perfect opportunity to get started awaits you twice each year, at the Cockrell Butterfly Center’s semi-annual plant sales! Once in spring and once in fall, we offer a wide variety of nectar plants for butterflies and host plants for their caterpillars. Plenty of experts are on hand to answer your butterfly gardening questions and help you to create the perfect butterfly habitat – right in your own backyard.
Check out the video below to get a sneak peek at the Plant Sale!
Don’t miss the chance to embrace this wonderful hobby – or to add new varieties to an established garden. Come early for the best selection; plants go fast!
