Visitors are gathering at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden to catch a whiff of a rare smelly plant known as the corpse flower.
The titan arum plant burst into bloom on Wednesday night and will emit an eye watering stench of rotting flesh for several days.
The flower usually only emerges once every two years and is a huge draw for horticulture enthusiasts.
Thousands of people are expected to flock to the Royal Botanic Garden to see the flower bloom for only the fifth time in Edinburgh.
Those who visit will also experience the infamous smell, which has also been compared with old bins, sweaty shoes and sewage.
Fiona Inches, Glasshouse manager at the Royal Botanic Garden, said: âItâs an exciting time. For a while it didnât look like it was going to be that big but it came up quite quickly, growing at 10 or 11cm per day.
âItâs over two metres tall now and still pushing up so itâs getting close to flowering for just the fifth time.
âIt will happen at night and weâre hoping that we can allow people to come and see it from the next day with timed tickets.â
The species originates in Sumatra and has one of the largest flowering structures of any plant.
The âdead-meatâ stench is caused by a mix of gases emitted by the heating up of parts of the central flower spike at night.
Edinburghâs famous specimen was a corm the size of an orange when it was given to RBGE in 2003. In 2010 it weighed 153.9kg, making it the largest ever recorded.
It was nurtured in a tropical glasshouse for 12 years before finally flowering for the first time in 2015, in a first for Scotland.
It flowered again in 2017, 2019 and 2022, which researchers thought might be its last smelly bloom.
Sadie Barber, research collections manager at the Royal Botanic Garden, said: âThe same plant flowering five times is a rare thing.
“There is still so much to learn about the biology and behaviour of this enigmatic species.â
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