The pungent smelling Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the Titan arum, the world's largest flower goes on show at Kew Gardens in west London May 2, 2002. The phallic flower is a native of the rainforests of Sumatra and only a few specimens have been cultivated. (Dan Chung/Reuters) caption game? comments? I wouldn't mind seeing this thing, except it's in London!? I wonder where it grows naturally!?
It only grows in the equitorial rainforests of Indonesia & Sumatra. There are a few specimens in the U.S., I think the last bloom here was in CA in '99. The smell is supposedly something akin to rotting meat.
In "The Evening Garden," Peter Loewer describes the Devil's Tongue plant: "These were flowers of such a noxious quality that when they were first smelled in eighteenth-century English greenhouses, they caused strong men to weep and stout British women to faint." Ahhhhhh...nature.
