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Thousands of people line up to smell the STINKEST flower in the world, which reeks of rotting meat, cheese and dead fish.
- A ‘corpse flower’ has bloomed at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens in South Australia
- The flower produces an unpleasant odor resembling rotting meat when in bloom.
- An estimated 1,500 visitors flooded into the park to catch a glimpse of the rare flower.
A rare ‘corpse flower’ in bloom is attracting thousands of visitors eager to sniff the strange plant’s distinctive rotting-flesh odor.
The Adelaide Botanic Gardens, South Australia, have been inundated with visitors after their rare Titum Arum bloomed overnight on Sunday.
He Amorphophallus titanum it takes 10 years to grow from a seed and releases a putrid odor when it reaches its flowering peak.
Thereafter, it only blooms every three to five years.
Thousands of visitors flocked to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens overnight after its ‘corpse flower’ began blooming and released its distinctive pungent odour.
Amorphophallus titanum is known as the corpse flower due to its foul odor, which has been compared to rotting meat and fermented cheese.
The foul odor is designed to attract carrion flies to your impressive flower for pollination by mimicking the stench of a dead animal.
The Botanical Gardens said the flower began to open at 2 p.m. Sunday and was fully open and releasing its infamous scent by 5 p.m.
The gardens’ curator of horticulture, Matt Coulter, explained that the flower peaks in the first 24 hours of blooming and typically fades within 48 hours.
Coutler said the gardens stayed open late Sunday to accommodate about 1,500 spectators.
“It was amazing to be able to show the public how amazing this plant is,” said Mr. Coulter atthe abc.
“Some people commented last night that it doesn’t look real, it looks man-made, it’s so unbelievable.
“Aside from the smell, it’s actually an incredibly beautiful plant. It only smells for two days. So basically it’s a 24 to 48 hour period where it’s going to look its best.”
More than 1,500 people lined up on Sunday, with many waiting for more than an hour to catch a glimpse and smell the rare flower (pictured)
The flower (pictured) peaks in the first 24 hours of its bloom and usually fades within 48 hours. There are thought to be fewer than 1,000 individual plants left in the wild.
The horticulturist said the plant smells stronger from a distance as the bad smell emanates from the flower, like an air freshener.
‘It has this kind of real dead rat smell, but also [smells like] fermentation, rotten cheese.
“A lot of people think it smells like dead fish, it has really complex aromas, it’s very fascinating,” he said.
This particular plant was propagated from leaf cuttings of an already established Titum arum and produced a flower that was smaller, 1.5 metres, but “no less smelly” than in previous years.
The Adelaide Botanic Gardens have grown a number of corpse flowers, with some blooming in 2016 and 2017, as part of a global conservation effort to protect rare and endangered species.
The corpse flower is native to the rainforests of West Sumatra, Indonesia, and is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Plants.
There are thought to be fewer than 1,000 individual plants left in the wild.