Corpse flower blooms at Geelong Botanic Gardens, drawing crowds to its pungent scent

ABC NEWS (Australia)

It blooms for just a few hours and smells like rotting flesh, but that didn’t stop thousands of people from lining up for an unforgettable experience. The rare corpse flower is putting on a once-in-a-decade show in Victoria.

Transcript

00:00Ten years in the making, a few hours in full bloom, there's definitely something in the

00:09air in Geelong.

00:10I've been following it on Lyde's cam and so we jumped in the car and came because I said

00:16it's open.

00:17We've waited two hours to get in so I think it was worth the wait.

00:19The Titanarum, also known as the corpse flower, produces one of the largest flowers in the

00:25world and it's well known for its distinctive scent, obvious even to those with a blocked

00:31nose.

00:32I can't sniff it because I don't got good sniffing, but I thought I sniffed something.

00:39It was very stinky.

00:42It wasn't as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

00:45It came in wafts, it was like possum poo.

00:49Thousands of botany lovers visited the Geelong Botanical Gardens to witness the event, with

00:54some coming from as far as Adelaide to get a glimpse and a whiff of the rare plant.

01:00The local council opened the gardens overnight so people wouldn't miss out, while the live

01:05stream of the big event was watched by more than 100,000 people.

01:11It's been non-stop for 24 hours now so the line hasn't dissipated and people just keep

01:17coming.

01:18It's the fascination and the uniqueness of it.

01:19If you want to draw attention to a botanic garden, this is probably the flower to have

01:25here.

01:26The stench of decaying meat is meant to attract the flower's native pollinators, beetles and

01:31flies.

01:32Native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the corpse flower is a novel attraction in

01:37botanical gardens around the world, but blink and you might miss it, with the plant returning

01:42to hibernation mode within two days.

01:46A once in a decade opportunity to stop and smell the flowers.

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