Rare flower blooming! This is interesting. It smells really bad, I’ve heard. Less than 15 have bloomed in the US, this one is currently 8’5" tall. The QT movies are neat, they show the flower opening up.
is this the flower that smells like death warmed over?
They have several in Malaysia and yes, it smells like rotting flesh. It is unbelievably putrid but fortunately doesn’t bloom often. Wonder why it survived in the evolutionary scheme of things?
The fact that it smells like rotting flesh is one of the reasons why it survived in the “evolutionary scheme of things”. The plant uses the smell to attract flies and carrion beetles that help to polinate the flowers (yes, flowers, the spathe is the “petal” looking part, and the spadix is a column of flowers). It’s related to the calla lillies and skunk cabbages.
By the way, the name means something like “giant shapeless penis” (from my loose translation of the latin :)).