The explanation lies in the source of the smell: the rare occurrence of a Titan Arum plant flowering. A plant flowering might not seem like a particularly special occasion, but the Titan Arum is no ordinary plant. Native to the rainforests of Sumatra in Indonesia, its lifecycle is a curious and patient one.
It starts with a seed germinating; this seed develops into an underground corm, which pushes out a single leaf. What it lacks in numbers of leaves it makes up for in size, as this leaf can reach the height of a small tree, and branches into numerous leaflets which allow the corm to collect energy. At this stage, for many years its lifecycle will consist of this single leaf growing, then dying away after several months, then a new one growing in its place.
Titan Arum is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the largest flower in the world. This title is actually held by Rafflesia arnoldii, another type of corpse flower. It is, however, the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world — the unbranched qualifier is needed as the talipot palm boasts the largest branched inflorescence. The corpse flower uses its smell to attract sweat bees and beetles looking for a prime location to lay their eggs.
By crawling all over the plant, these insects play a vital role in pollinating the Titan Arum. The plant's distinctive smell is just one of its tricks for attracting insects.
Read on to find out some of its others. We've already explored how the Titan Arum uses its noxious perfume to help with pollination, but the plant doesn't stop there. Botanists also theorize that the plant's fleshy pink color and unusually warm temperature about the same as the human body help complete the illusion that the plant is a giant hunk of decaying meat for insects to lay their eggs in.
Titan Arum isn't the only plant with an eye -watering stink, which may be why it works so hard to stand out from its malodorous brethren.
Plants that reek of dead animals fittingly fall under the category of carrion flowers. Not only do carrion flowers smell like rotting meat, they also tend to look the part. For instance, the Stapelia asterias flower is coated with fine hairs that make the flower resemble moldy meat.
Rafflesia arnoldi , the world's largest flower, is another fleshy carrion flower located in the forests of Sumatra. As beautiful as many carrion flowers are, you'll never find one in a bouquet at your local florist. Not only do carrion flowers reek, many are also very rare and hard to grow.
Still, none of these flowers seem to have the ability to turn stomachs like the Titan Arum, and the corpse flower wouldn't have it any other way. Flowers aren't the only thing in the plant kingdom capable of making people hold their noses. The durian, an Asian fruit with a nutty, complex flavor, has such a pungent odor that some hotels and restaurants have banned it.
The durian's smell comes from sulfurous compounds, the same compounds you'd find in rotten eggs. And while many people find the smell objectionable, others go crazy for it. In fact, efforts to create a less stinky version of the fruit have been met with strong protest from the durian's fans, who insist that the stronger the smell, the better the flavor.
Sign up for our Newsletter! In fact, the plant gets its scientific name from three roots: amorphos without form , phallos penis , and titanum giant. Can't say the plant's Latin name in polite company without blushing? Thanks to David Attenborough , the English naturalist and TV personality, you can also opt to use its common name, Titan arum. While narrating BBC nature documentary series "The Private Life of Plants," Attenborough thought the corpse flower's proper name was too improper to say on TV, so he coined a less-scandalous moniker.
Or, you could simply go with its Indonesian name , bunga bangkai. Western scientists first learned of Amorphophallus titanum in , when Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari came across the enormous plant growing in the rainforests of Sumatra, a large island in western Indonesia. The specimen he recorded had a circumference of around 5 feet, and its height was around 10 feet. Beccari tried to ship the flowering shrub's corms, or giant underground tubers, back to Europe, but French customs ended up holding them under an order designed to prevent the spread of the grapevine pest Phylloxera.
Still, a few seeds survived against the odds, and a single seedling was sent to the Kew Botanic Gardens in England, where Beccari had once studied. There, it flowered in In , when the same corpse flower bloomed again, the crowds were so large that police were brought in to control them.
Not surprisingly, the corpse flower quickly gained notoriety in Europe: An English artist hired to illustrate the plant is said to have become ill from the odor, and governesses forbade young ladies from looking at it, for obvious reasons. Technically, a corpse flower isn't a single flower; it's a flowering plant with clusters of blooms.
The plant consists of a thick central spike, known as a spadix, with a base that's encircled by two rings of "male" and "female" flowers. A large, frilly leaf called a spathe envelops these flowers to protect them. Aside from its smell, a corpse flower's most noticeable quality is its sheer size.
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