John Borrette with the deeply malodorous Amorphophallus konjac, also known as the stink lily.
John Borrette with the deeply malodorous Amorphophallus konjac, also known as the stink lily.
Flowers are often admired for their scent but a large lily flowering in Northland gardens is stretching the distinction between perfume and pong.
It's the lewd, crude, putrid Amorphophallus konjac, commonly called the stink lily - a drab purple to russet-hued spire of a lily thrusting out of the groundin this season and making its presence known by an odour most often described as rotting flesh. Or, as one Whangarei gardener described it, 'dog-do' and 'dirty dog'.
We won't gild the lily too much, particularly as this one has gone over to the dark side, but reasons to love the bizarre, revolting smelling plant include some other names it's known by: the devil's tongue, voodoo lily and elephant yam.
It's either fairly rare or possibly simply unpopular because of its stench but the stink lily does well in sultry Northland. It made the national news in recent days because of a more cossetted specimen flowering in the Wellington Botanical Gardens, and the species made international news in 2010 when one flowered outdoors for the first recorded time in Britain, on the Isle of Wight.
Bertie and John Borrette have a love/hate relationship with the lilies that thrust up through their Vine Town garden at this time of year.
"They're as ugly as sin. We're keeping them because they're quite striking," Ms Borrette said.
Another Whangarei woman, who asked not be identified as she doesn't want unwanted visitors in her garden, said her stink lily has been ponging up her front garden for 10 years.
After all these years, though, this is the first time the corm - the 'organ' of the lily that sits dormant under the ground for much of the year - has sent up a second shaft.
She said it is not unusual to see people walking past her place at this time of year, pinching their noses as they get a whiff from the other side of the fence.
"As someone said to me, it's not the sort of thing you should have by your gate. It's not a very welcoming smell, it smells like rotten meat."
