Giant corpse plant draws crowds with once in a decade bloom stink

Corpse plant: The pungent Amorphophallus titanum is expected to draw 5000 hardy visitors during bloom. Photo / Jarrod Valliere, AP

The bloom of a giant and stinky Sumatran flower nicknamed the "corpse plant" because it smells like a dead body is drawing huge crowds to a Southern California botanical garden.

The bloom of the Amorphophallus titanum plant began Sunday afternoon at the San Diego Botanic Gardens in Encinitas. By Monday morning, timed-entry tickets had sold out, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

More than 5,000 people were expected to visit the garden by Tuesday evening.

The bloom of the "corpse plant" lasts just 48 hours and during its peak it emits a putrid odour of rotting flesh to attract carrion beetles and flesh flies that help its pollination process.

The blooming flower's "rotting corpse smell that was so thick and heavy you could cut it with a knife," said John Connors, horticulture manager for the San Diego Botanic Gardens.

Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse plant, after it bloomed at the San Diego Botanic Gardens. Photo / Jarrod Valliere, AP

The Big Stink

The Titan arum or 'giant lily' - less generously known as the 'corpse plant' - takes between five and ten years to mature. There is also considerable variation in period between blooming, anywhere between two and ten years.

However when there is sign that the flowers are ready to bloom a titan arum is sure to draw crowds - despite the stink.

With petals growing up to 3 metres, it is the tallest flower in the world.

Checking out the corpse plant at the Dunedin Botanic Gardens, Suliya (5, left) and Sarina (7) Li, of Dunedin. Photo / Christine O'Connor

There are at least two of the pungent plants open to the public in New Zealand.

Dunedin Botanic Garden was gifted with a stink plant in 2008 which last bloomed in 2018 and January this year, drawing 10,000 people to visit the glasshouse over the two-day display.

Auckland Domain Winter Gardens is also in proud possession of a ten-year old Corpse plant, which last bloomed last year. However, sensitive Aucklanders were put off by the sulphurous odours, with only a few hundred hardy botanists turning up.

- Associated Press with additional reporting