This notoriously pungent Corpse Flower is attracting floods of visitors to a botanical garden despite its sickeningly fowl smell now that it is in full bloom, as seen here.
Dubbed the corpse flower, the giant Titan plant (Amorphophallus titanum) is attracting visitors in their droves to the Botanical Garden at the University of Salzburg in western Austria, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare flower, which has bloomed in Austria for the first time.
Video Credit: CEN/ Universitat Salzburg
Measuring in at 2.4 metres and weighing more than 40 kilogrammes, university staff have been watching the plant waiting for it to open up for days, not wanting to miss the moment. Once flowered it remains open for around three days.
Contacted by Central European News (CEN), Stefan Doetterl from the Botanical Garden in Salzburg said: “We have had people keep an eye on the plant all night long.
“It is getting very exciting. It has opened up gradually over the last few days and is now in full bloom.
“You can almost watch the plant opening up in front of your eyes.
“It smells of dead flesh, poop and vomit. It really is not very pleasant.”
The titanum plant is the largest flowering plant in the world. It is known as the corpse plant due the odour it lets off which can likened to the smell of a rotting corpse or carcass,
The titan arum grows in the wild only in the equatorial rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The plant flowers only infrequently in the wild and even more rarely when cultivated. It first flowered in cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, in 1889, with over 100 cultivated blossoms since then.
Story By: Kathryn Quinn, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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