The titan arum is a giant flower that smells of rotting flesh

The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) produces the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence — a flowering structure that can tower up to 3 metres tall. Native to the rainforests of Sumatra, it grows from a giant underground tuber and stores energy for years before flowering.

It is better known as the corpse flower, and the name is earned. As it opens, it heats up and pumps out a stench of rotting meat, driven by sulfur compounds such as dimethyl disulfide and trisulfide. The smell, plus a deep red, flesh-coloured frill, fools carrion beetles and flies into visiting and carrying pollen.

The show is brief and rare. A bloom is fully open for only a day or two before collapsing, and a single plant may flower only once every few years — or wait far longer. When the titan arum bloomed at London’s Kew Gardens in 1926, crowds were so large that police were called to manage them.