This gorgeous, but smelly, corpse flower bloomed on June 18th. Royal Botanic Gardens, KewIn London however it tends to be only for a short period, lasting only 24 to 36 hours.

Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanium) also known as Titan Aramgets its name from the foul smell it gives off, resembling rotting meat, which is so strong it can be heard for hundreds of metres. The smell is produced to attract rare pollinating insects, such as flesh flies and carrion beetles, to the short-lived flowers, and must be strong enough to do its job during the short period the plant is in flower, because the plant may not flower again for many years.

Strictly speaking, this up to 3 metre tall plant isn’t one flower, but many. The inner inflorescence, or spadix, emerges from a purple, pleated collar called a bract and looks like a yellow obelisk. The inflorescence, or cluster of flowers, lies in the protected area between the bract and the spadix.

If you happen to see and smell it, the smell may not be what you expect: it can change during the flower’s short lifespan and can smell like rotting flesh, as well as pleasant excrement or warm garbage.

This rare plant is endemic to the rainforests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but is cultivated in many botanical gardens around the world for its beauty and the crowds it attracts when it blooms. The first time it is known to flower outside of Sumatra was in 1889 at Kew Botanical Gardens.