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.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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.