On two occasions where my Amorphophallus cirrifer bloomed, I was checking my sandals and the surrounding for traces of dog poop. It really smelled like one, and although I have plenty of smelly plants in the collection, this one was so bad it made me want to puke.
This medium size plant is found in deciduous forests in central Thailand and had been known in the west since 1920s although it remained rare in cultivation until the e-trading era.
The inflorescence tried its best to mimic a dead rat - its very short flower stalk, the liver-coloured spathe and its grotesque long tapering hairy spadix that looked like the tail. And of course its odour - taking closeup pictures without a telephoto lens is a self-inflicted torture. In terms of carrion mimicry, its right up there with the likes of Helicodiceros muscivorus and a few others mentioned in a round-up of smelly ugly plants.
