The internet is abuzz with a newly found plant identified as “Putricia,” famous for its rotting flesh smell and attracting a huge number of people to the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, Australia, over the last two days.
The corpse flower is a rare plant that began to bloom on Thursday and gained instant attention as it gave off a sickening stench described as having the aromatic profile of a “dead rat.”
The flower’s scientific name is Amorphophallus titanum, and it is also known as “Titan Arum” or “bunga bangkai” in Indonesia, where it grows in the wild.
It is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra and is listed as an endangered species, with only 300–500 specimens thought to be left in the wild.
The name Putricia was a nickname given by the staff at the botanic garden, which is a combination of “putrid” and “Patricia.”
There are 11 flowers in the collection displayed in Sydney, and giving a name to rare plants is a tradition there.
Putricia has been widely shared online and has become an Internet sensation over the last 18 days as thousands watched a livestream created by the institution to show its growth from a small bud to a 1.6-metre-tall flower in real time.
It garnered more than 1.5 million views and a very active online community. The director of horticulture and living collections at the Sydney gardens expressed amazement at the response. He shared that the staff at the gardens have been “shell-shocked” by Putricia’s sudden popularity.
Over the last week, some 20,000 excited onlookers have passed through the doors to catch a pungent whiff of Putricia.
Sydney Botanic Gardens chief scientist Professor Brett Summerell told international media that Putricia had taken time to produce her unique stench but was at her peak on Thursday evening when the smell could be detected from 20 metres away, far outside the pavilion.
“Over a period of time, as the flower starts to unfurl, it starts to generate heat, and that heat starts to generate chemical reactions. What the plant is trying to do is produce maximum amounts of that smell so it attracts insects, flies and beetles from all across the jungle so they can come and pollinate it,” the chief scientist explained.
Putricia is quite an oversized flower, as its fluted crimson petals measure more than a metre across, with a pointed central stalk that can reach over 3 metres in height.
The flower’s disgusting smell and huge structure attract pollinators, which helps it reproduce.
Notably, the corpse flower typically does not bloom more than once every few years and lasts only about a day. It has also not bloomed in Sydney since 2010, making Putricia the fifth to bloom at the gardens.
After two days, the yellow stalk at the centre of the flower collapses, and it will take at least three to five years before it blooms again.
An onlooker in Australia waited 90 minutes to see the flower and, after witnessing it, remarked, “the flower was beautiful, but the smell was like hot garbage”.
