Thousands queue for a whiff of corpse flower's stench of death

Stacey Fraser, of Dunedin, goes for the view, not the smell of the corpse flower blooming at the Dunedin Botanic Garden yesterday. Photos / Christine O'Connor

Thousands queued at the Dunedin Botanic Garden over the weekend to catch a rare whiff of the city's nauseating corpse flower.

Winter garden collection curator Stephen Bishop said the garden was open for extended hours, 9am to 8.30pm, while the flower bloomed and queues were "massive" on Saturday and yesterday, stretching out the door of the Winter Garden, down the terrace and past the rose garden.

"Thousands came. We've had an absolutely amazing response from the public and all the staff here are blown away by the number of people coming out and having a look and a sniff."

The plant (Amorphophallus titanium) is famous for producing one of the world's largest flowers and a nauseating smell comparable to rotting flesh.

It had some people jokingly asking each other if they had forgotten to shower or if they had just "dropped one".

"I'm a little concerned about the number of people who want to see what a corpse smells like. But I'm not sure that's the only attraction," Mr Bishop said.

"One of the big attractions is that it is the largest flowering structure in the world."

The rare event started when the flower began to open about noon on Saturday, he said.

"It's actually not too bad. I've smelt a lot worse, but it comes in waves — there are times when it smells a bit stronger than other times."

He said the smell occurred when the "female parts" of the flower were ready for pollen.

"It was trying to send out the signal to its pollinators that it was ready to be pollinated. That's why we get that horrible scent."

He said the smell started to die away late yesterday as the "female parts" settled down.

"The reason it does this is so it can't self-pollinate. It has to cross-pollinate from a different plant, which we don't have, so it's not going to happen."

Large crowds queued for about an hour yesterday to see the corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanium) at the Dunedin Botanic Garden.

Mr Bishop said one of the downsides to working with the flower was the smell permeated his clothing.

When he got home from work on Saturday, he was "instructed" by his wife to strip and shower immediately. The up side was, it was rare to see (and smell) the plant in flower.

It was the first time the plant had flowered in the decade it had been at the garden.

Once the plant has finished blooming, the redevelopment of the Winter Garden will begin.