Amorphophallus titanum

image courtesy of Wikipedia.org

This week, over 10,000 people showed up at a tiny greenhouse in Basel, Switzerland to watch a flower bloom. But this was no ordinary Easter lily.  It was Amorphophallus titanum, and even a rough translation of its Latin name will tell you that this plant is obscene in more ways than one.

Amorphophallus titanum ( aka, Titan arum) is not the kind of plant you would want to grow in your herb garden.  Its flower is no good at all for filling a sachet under your pillow or for strewing over the floors of your cozy little cottage dwelling.  Its common name is the 'corpse flower' and its fragrance has been compared to rotting human flesh. Flies absolutely adore it and if P.T. Barnum or R.L. Ripley could have put their hands on one of these plants, you can bet that it would have been the star of every sideshow from Kalamazoo to Krakatoa.