People who like foul-smelling flowers were luck this week. They had a chance to see and smell the world's smelliest plant, called the corpse flower. A corpse is a dead body. The flower gets its name because it smells rotting flesh. The bloom attracted thousands visitors to the Geelong Botanic Garden, just south Melbourne, Australia. The plant began blooming Monday. More than five thousand people visited the garden to see it. Some people had to hold their nose when they were near the flower. Others coughed and held their breath because the foul smell. Australia's Nine News channel reported that visitors described the smell as being a dead mouse or rotting garbage.
The corpse flower is extremely rare. The plant is native to Indonesia. An international conservation group listed it as an endangered species. The group says there are only a few hundred the plants left the wild. A lot of forest in which the plant grows has been cut . Corporations are using the land to grow palm oil. The flower is one the biggest in the world. It can grow to a height three metres and live over 40 years. However, it blooms just once a decade and opens only a day or two. The flower smells the rotting flesh a dead animal. This smell attracts beetles and flies. The insects pollinate the flower so it can bloom again.
