Recently, at the in New York, I had a dream come true. I got a whiff of one of the world’s stinkiest plants: a corpse flower called Amorphophallus gigas (pictured above), cousin of Amorphophallus titanum, which grabs headlines whenever one blooms.
The A. gigas I saw was standing about 2 metres high in a suffocatingly hot greenhouse. As I entered and took my first sniff, I must admit I was underwhelmed. It smelled only mildly unpleasant, a bit mildewy, certainly not the stench I had expected.
But corpse flowers give off their odours – meant to attract carrion-eating insects – in waves, and the next surge hit me hard. It was foul, a mixture of carcass and mould with a bit of baby poo thrown in. My stomach turned and I had to rush outside to get some fresh air. That’s one item off my bucket list!
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Corpse flowers bloom infrequently, but they have been cultivated all over the world, so check local universities and gardens if you would like to smell one yourself.
