Hundreds of visitors are flocking
daily to a botanical garden in southeastern Brazil to watch the rare blooming
of the Titan arum, the world’s smelliest and largest tropical flower.
Also known as the “corpse flower”
because of a smell likened to rotting flesh, it began blooming on Christmas Day
and is already beginning to close, botanist Patricia Oliveira said.
The flower “has a lifespan of 72
hours, during which its stink and meat-coloration attract pollinators: carrion
flies and beetles,” added Oliveira, who works at the Inhotim garden, about 445
kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, housing the massive flower.
Titan arum, also known by its
scientific name, “Amorphophallus titanum,” which means misshapen giant penis,
is native to the rainforests of western Sumatra. It rarely flowers, is
incredibly difficult to cultivate and takes six years to grow.
Thursday, this Brazilian specimen
reached 167 centimeters in height, but the species can grow up to over three
meters tall.
This “is the second time it
bloomed. The first time was in December 2010,” Oliveira said.
When it flowers, the bloom has
the same temperature as that of the human body, which helps spread its pungent smell.
The species was first described
in 1878 by Italian natural scientist Odoardo Beccari.
Ten years later, it bloomed in a
London botanical garden and its next flowering occurred in 1926.
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