Free Republic

MILWAUKEE -- Officials at the Milwaukee Public Museum expect the so-called "corpse flower" to bloom very soon. The museum's curator of botany, Neil Luebke (LIHB'-kee), says chances are good the titan arum will bloom Monday afternoon, close early Tuesday, open again that afternoon and then close for good sometime Wednesday. The flower is known for its odor of rotting flesh. It comes in waves and attracts carrion beetles and sweat bees in its native rain forests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. [snip] The museum obtained the plant in 2002 from a seed produced by University of Wisconsin-Madison's flower. It...

Giant "corpse flower" raises a stink in Sydney SYDNEY (AFP) - Hundreds of people queued up in Australia's largest city to get a glimpse and a whiff of a blooming "corpse flower", the world's largest and arguably smelliest flower. The Titan Arum's smell is described as something like rotting flesh or fish gone bad, hence its nickname. Its blooms, which can have a diameter of as much as four feet (1.33 metres), release a pungent stench to attract insects. It has been drawing huge crowds to Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens since it reached full bloom overnight. It is only the...