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In the botanical garden in the Australian city of Geelong, a rare flower bloomed with an unusual smell that resembles the smell of decaying flesh. Despite this, the flower has attracted the attention of tourists, who are now queuing up to smell it.
This is reported by the CNN branch in Australia, Nine News.
Amorphophallus titanum or "corpse flower" gets its name from the strong putrid smell it emits when it blooms. So the plant attracts beetles and flies that pollinate it.
It usually blooms once every 10 years, and each bloom lasts from 24 to 48 hours. Fans of botany or simply natural rarities want to see its flowering live.
The Australian flower bloomed on November 11, and on that day about 5 thousand people came to it. Visitors described the smell as that of a dead mouse or a musty pond. Those who cannot come to see the rarity offer an online broadcast of the flowering. True, the broadcast cannot convey the smell.
Amorphophallus titanum is listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as an endangered species. It usually grows in the Sumatran forest. The plant lives from 30 to 40 years, but blooms only a few times in its entire life. Now the natural environment where the flower grows has decreased significantly. The forests where it usually grows are cut down for timber or for oil palm plantations.
