'Titan Arum' At the Kew Gardens

Gardening

oi-Staff

By Staff

Thursday, April 30, 2009, 12:14

Britain's Kew gardens are opening for the public. If you want to see world's smelliest flowers, they are blooming here.

The 'Titan Arum' is a flower from indonesia. They emit a smell as that of a corpse. They flower just once every six or seven years, and they are all set out to bloom in Kew gardens and to let out a stomach churning smell.

The garden's Princess of Wales Conservatory houses 12 of the plants, which produce cream and pink flowers while in bloom, while the base of the stems releases the sickening odour for around three days when the Arums are ready to pollinate.

The plants make the unpleasant smell to attract flesh-eating beetles that crawl into the flowers and become trapped, covering them in pollen in an effort to escape. The flowers then wither allowing the insects out.

The largest Arums at the gardens weigh about 200lb (90kg) and can grow at a rate of quarter of an inch an hour. It takes four members of staff to repot the plants.