"Rotting Flesh" Flower Blooms At Kew

A warm London welcome to Titan arum, the largest unbranched inflorescence plant in the world, which bloomed at Kew Gardens yesterday. Though you may not want to visit if your nose is of the sensitive type: the noisome plant, colloquially known as the 'corpse flower', emits a scent best described as rotting meat. The offensively odoured plant, indigenous to Sumatra, evolved this delightful smell in order to attract flesh flies, which as their name suggests, are partial to rotting flesh. Luckily, then, for the continued good health of Kew staffers' olfactory systems, that the plant blooms but for one day only. Here's a time lapse video of the same plant flowering last year at Kew.