14 DAY TRIAL // The smell of rotting meat appears to be appealing to several hundred people, provided that said scent is released by a rare and endangered corpse flower.
Not to beat about the bush, it was this past weekend when a corpse flower residing at the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton, Canada, bloomed.
Sources say that the process debuted Sunday evening, and that by Monday morning, the flower was ready to trigger gag reflexes amongst the visitors to the Conservatory.
“My gag reflex went, and my eyes teared up, and I saw other people do the exact same thing,” grower Sarah Birmingham said.
These flowers only stay in bloom for up to 36 hours, specialists say. During this time, the smell they release helps attract carrion beetles, whose job is to make sure the plant gets pollinated.
The corpse flower's scientific name is Amorphophallus titanium, but folks at the Muttart Conservatory prefer to call it Putrella.