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Name: The corpse flower.
Age: It takes up to 12 years for titan arum to flower for the first time.
So a plant? In the family Araceae and endemic to the rainforests of Sumatra. Amorphophallus titanum if you’re a nerd.
From the Greek for “giant deformed penis”? Correct. Because of its tall, not unintentionally yellow spathe of flowers that emerge from a chestnut blade that looks like a massive petal.
Me tooit’s big? The largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, up to three meters high. But his size isn’t what he’s best known for.
What then? The clue is in the name. in Indonesia is called bunga bangkai …
Sounds like a party Silvio Berlusave maybe he once threw for his friends in finance. Wrong country, wrong language. Bunga means flower bangkai corpse.
And “corpse” because? That’s what it smells like. Rotting flesh. The scent attracts pollinators from up to half a mile away.
woohoo Well, Indonesia is many miles away (unless you’re reading Sumatra, of course). They have some pri Kew Gardens in west London. This is where the titan arum first bloomed outside of its native Sumatra, in 1889. The second time it bloomed, in 1926, it attracted huge crowds and the police were called in to control them.
It doesn’t happen often? Flowers are both rare and unpredictable. The plant can take years to rebloom. But it happenedat the Princess of Wales Conservatoire in Kew, this week.
quick! Taxi to Kew! Too late – flowering lasts only 24-36 hours, and the unpleasant stench lasts only one evening. You’ll have to wait to inhale the scent of the world’s smelliest plant.
Is it true, the stinkiest in the world? I can also offer to eastern cabbage skunk of North American wetlands whose blooms are said to smell like a dead skunk.
OK. Or Hydnora africana, which may look like female genitalia, but smells more like feces. That’s probably why it’s so attractive to dung beetles.
OK. Carob flowers, on the other hand, are said to smell like semen, if that’s more your thing.
You know what, I just am i’ll stick with the corpse flower for now thanks. The good news is they have a few in Kew so you might not have to wait too long. Another blossomed just a few weeks ago.
Say: “A perfect opportunity to raise awareness of the fragility of its natural habitat.”
do not say: “Hahaha. No, officer, we’ve just got a blooming titan arum down there in the basement…”
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