![Titan Arum [post bloom] - Sumatra by sftrajan](http://static.flickr.com/1234/1089837903_fa70178a0c_s.jpg)
Watch The Titan Arum Bloom
The Top Five Reasons Titan Arum Is The Smelliest Flower
- It has been said to smell like dead animals...
- ...or animal droppings...
- ...or rancid cheese...
- ...and, yes, the smell has been described as "corpse-like".
- In the wild, the smell can carry up to a half mile (helps to attract the carrion beetles and flies).
A Short Documentary On The Corpse Flower
Wow - the biggest flower in the world - Titan Arum - David Attenborough - BBC wildlife
Runtime: 2:28
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10 Comments:
Links That Prove The Point
The Huntington Botanical Gardens
1 point
Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew
0 points
Time Lapse Video Of The Titan Arum Blooming
Titan Arum On Wikipedia
The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "penis", and titan, "giant") is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The largest single flower is borne by the Rafflesia arnoldii; the largest branched inflorescence in the plant kingdom belongs to the Talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera). It thrives at the edges of rainforests near open grasslands. Though found in many botanic gardens around the world it is still indigenous only to the tropical forests of Sumatra. Due to its fragrance, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal,"History and Botany of the Titan Arum" from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden the titan arum is also known as a carrion flower, the "Corpse flower", or "Corpse plant" (in Indonesian, "bunga bangkai" - bunga means flower, while bangkai means corpse or cadaver; for the same reason, the same title is also attributed to Rafflesia which, like the titan arum, also grows in the rainforests of Sumatra).
The popular name titan arum was invented by the broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, for his BBC TV series The Private Life of Plants, in which the flowering and pollination of the plant were filmed for the first time. Attenborough felt that constantly referring to the plant as Amorphophallus on a popular TV documentary would be inappropriate.
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Titan Arum Is A Squid's Choice Lens!
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Your Turn: What Do You Think?
Is this the smelliest flower you've ever seen?
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California_Dreamin wrote...
Fascinating lens. Speaking of smelly things, I once opened my refrigerator and had this rancid smell waft out at me, and so I informed everyone, "There's something spoiled in the refrigerator."
My mother-in-law replied, "That's my fish. It's a real delicacy." (I should mention that I live in Japan, and that this conversation took place in Japanese)
When I asked her what this delicacy was called, she answered, "Kusaiya." Straight translation: "smelly thing." This certainly is a delicacy that lives up to it's name.
The smelliness has nothing to do with the variety of fish, but rather with the process it goes through in order to become "kusaiya." Basically, it is rancid fish, that fetches a very high price.
Posted June 19, 2009
Intuitive wrote...
I had just got off the phone with my aunt who had been telling me about how she kept running into mentions of the corpse flower when I read that KimGianterino had included one of my lenses in her A Day of 100 Squid Angel Blessings lens. When I was looking for mine, I saw this first! Couldn't believe it. Great lens, too. :) 5*
Posted June 18, 2009
Irenemaria wrote...
Oh I wish you could put fragrance into the lens :) One day for sure I will smell this flower!!! Congratulations to your reward - well deserved too.
Posted July 03, 2008
enslavedbyfaeries wrote...
Congratulations! Your lens was a winner on the Squids Choice Awards lens where it will be featured for the next two months! (p.s. I tried to send you a message with the "contact me" button, but I kept getting a captcha error so I will try again tomorrow.) 5*
Posted June 30, 2008
by GypsyPirate
I'm a parrothead from the NorthCoast, ready to share my view on the world...
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