Corpse Flower blooms in Kerala after 9 Years

Hundreds of people have been lining up at a sanctuary in Alattil, Kerala to view the Titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (Corpse Flower), which is blooming after about nine years. 

•    Titan arum, which smells like rotting flesh and is the largest flower in the world, collapses on itself about two days after blooming. It is native to Sumatra in Indonesia.
•    The Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, established by late Wolfgang Theuerkauf, a German who dedicated over 30 years of his life to the conservation of plants of southern India, has been growing the Amorphophallus Titanum or Titan arum , more commonly called the Corpse Flower, the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, for nine years.
•    It began opening on Monday in the garden’s green house.
•    Suma Keloth, conservationist of the sanctuary, said the plant, which is native to Indonesia’s Sumatra region, had been grown from a seed planted about nine years ago. The corpse flower cannot self-pollinate and its stench attracts sweat bees and carrion beetles that live on animal carcasses.