There ’s something rotten in the realm of Great Britain . One of the smelliest plants on Earth is about to bloom in London . Not in the street , but in the tropical rainforest glasshouse of Kew Gardens , which hosts the " largest and most diverse botanic and mycological collections in the world " . Among the gems of this compendium is an inviolable stinker ( say with love ) , so we popped down to see it for ourselves , and to ask the experts about this one - of - a - kind works .

Titan aroid ( Amorphophallus titanum),whose Latin name translates to misshapen phallus due to how the flower looks before it blooms , has the gravid unbranched inflorescence in the world , but its ill fame does n’t derive from its size alone – it comes from the look it produces when it opens . There ’s a reason it ’s called the " corpse flower " . It smells " like there is a dead rotten animal somewhere,“Solène Dequiret , Princess of Wales Conservatory Supervisor at Kew Gardens , told IFLScience .

But there ’s a fantastic evolutionary reason for it . Titan arumcomes from Sumatra , an island in Indonesia , and is not a particularly common flower . In fact , the nearest titan aroid in the wild might be kilometers away .

“ [ Titan aroid ] has to be quite big and pungent in rescript to appeal a pollinator , which would be a tent-fly that has chatter a former flower klick and kilometer away , to have the crossing pollenation , ” Dequiret tell IFLScience . “ It takes a quite a little of energy to divvy up that feeling across the island . And it needs a lot of vigor to be that big . ”

The prominent spike - like spadix of the plant acts " like a chimney , " Dequiret tells us , " so it heats up and that helps to circulate the smelling even further . "

The life sentence of this flush is quite ephemeral . It come from a tuber from which a bud develops . When the bud is out of the ground , it can go in one of two directions . " They always keep us guessing , " enunciate Dequiret . It can become an tremendous folio , so liberal and funny that it is well mistaken for a tree , an glide slope developed to dissuade herbivores from nosh on it – most of the clock time , the tuber results in a leaf . But once every seven years or so , it grows into a flower . And it grows tight .

When we have to do the pollenation ourselves , we do have to go and mystify our headway right in there when it ’s smelly with the pollen .

Titan aroid grow about 10 centimeters ( 4 column inch ) per Clarence Day , catch to a height of around 2 meters ( 6.6 foot ) , and that ’s ina matter of weeksin some case . Then it will open up , releasing its noxious gas for all the carrion - eating insects of Sumatra to reek . Or in a botanical garden , for the workers to rush in and hoard the pollen . " When we have to do the pollenation ourselves , we do have to go and stick our mind right in there when it ’s smelly with the pollen we ’ve collected from our old flower , " articulate Dequiret .

step on it is key – the flower stays fully clear for a day , begin closing the next , and within a few days it break .

" It ’s all that try and that impulse for just an opening , and then a flop , " Dequiret told IFLScience .

While the heyday is endangered in the wild , botanic gardens go hard to protect this species and make it thrive . Kew Gardenshas several titan arum plants in its collection - " We need to add them [ into the nursery ] when they ’re a bud because if not they ca n’t go through our doors ! " – and they tend to get at least one flowering every year . But this yr was a particularly good one – justlast weekone of their specimens flowered , with a second due to bloom any twenty-four hour period now .

If you want tosmell itfor yourself you well get to Kew fast ( or check out if your tightlipped botanical garden has one if you are not in London ) .