Would anyone want to smell the scent of a dead rat? At least in Australia, thousands of people have gathered for this very purpose.
In the city of Geelong, Australia, an extraordinary flower called Titan Arum has bloomed, and thousands of people are lining up to see and smell it. Known as the “corpse flower,” it emits a foul odor resembling that of numerous dead rats, while some compare it to the smell of feet.
This flower blooms once every 7 to 10 years and dies 48 hours after blooming. It is the world’s largest unbranched flower-bearing plant, and it has no other branches.
The plant is native to the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, and although it appears to be a single flower, it is actually a cluster of flowers. Geelong Botanic Gardens was gifted this plant by Adelaide in 2021.
The plant started blooming on November 11, and on the first day, 5,000 people visited the botanic garden to see it. The plant has a lifespan of 30 to 40 years, meaning it only blooms a few times in its life.
Due to deforestation in Indonesia’s tropical rainforests, the survival of such flowers is at risk, and in 2018, they were included in the list of plants threatened with extinction. To save the plant, Indonesia has sent its seeds to various botanic gardens worldwide.
