“The fact that they open very rarely, so they flower rarely, is obviously something that puts them at a little bit of a disadvantage in the wild,” said garden spokesperson Sophie Daniel, who designed Putricia's kooky and funereal display.
The rare unfurling of an endangered plant that emits the smell of decaying flesh drew hundreds of devoted fans to a greenhouse in Sydney, Australia on Thursday, where they lined up to experience a momentous bloom -– and a fragrance evoking gym socks and rotting garbage.
Tall, pointed and smelly, the corpse flower is scientifically known as amorphophallus titanum — or bunga bangkai in Indonesia, where the plants are found in the Sumatran rainforest.
For a week, she has graced a stately and gothic display in front of a purple curtain and wreathed in mist from a humidifier at the Royal Sydney Botanic Garden.
But to fans of this specimen, she’s Putricia -- a portmanteau of “putrid” and “Patricia” eagerly adopted by her followers who, naturally, call themselves Putricians.
