Thousands queue in Australia to smell flesh-odoured corpse flower which blooms every 1000 days

The rare corpse flower, or Amorphophallus titanum, which lasts only 36 hours and has an odour of a “smelly bag of rotten fish” is in a botanic garden near Adelaide

Thousands of people have queued in Australia to smell a rare six-foot “Corpse Flower”, which took almost ten years to grow and is known for its pungent odour of rotting flesh.
The Amorphophallus titanum, commonly known as the Corpse Flower, went on display in a botanic garden near Adelaide and attracted more than 2,500 visitors on Tuesday.
The plant, an endangered species native to Sumatra in Indonesia, produces flowers every 1,000 days which last only 24 to 36 hours before collapsing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...ralia.html

I'd rather watch it on youtube than in real life

There is one of those about 30 miles from here at Va Tech. It bloomed this past August but I didn't go smell it.

I actually saw one a few years ago at Selby gardens in Sarasota. Smelly gardens.

This more domestic variant is the closest I ever got:



Looked pretty - reeked of festering death.
Can't imagine what those big ones smell like.

Oh yeah, those succulents do pretty well as houseplants even up here. The family is from Africa. It's pollinated by fly's, thus it's evolutionary triumph.
The flies are attracted by the the flowers that smell... well... like death, and will lay their eggs on the furry surface.
Flies are obviously convinced that the flower is the carcass of a dead animal, right down to the fur.
There are other varieties that don't smell so bad.
I used to have this one...

Was given to me back in 1996 by someone who brought one back from South Africa back in the early 50's and has cloned many of them for friends.
This one in particular is endangered in the wild as it doesn't really have the smell of most of the close relatives and made a more desirable houseplant.