GENEVA: Thousands of plant lovers have flocked to the northern Swiss city of Basel to see a giant, stinky flower bloom for the first time.

The Basel Botanical Gardens expects 10,000 people to see its amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, in full glory before the bloom wilts late Saturday or Sunday. The plant is 17 years old and has never bloomed before.


Visitors haven't been deterred by the strong stench of rotting flesh the flower emits to attract insects for pollination.

The 6.6-feet (2-meter) tall flower is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the last one to bloom in Switzerland was 75 years ago.
Worldwide, there have been only 134 recorded blooms from artificial cultivation.

The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "phallus", and titan, "giant") is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. (The largest single flower is borne by the Rafflesia arnoldii; the largest branched inflorescence in the plant kingdom belongs to the Talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera).

Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal, the titan arum is also known as a carrion flower, the "Corpse flower", or "Corpse plant" (Indonesian: bunga bangkai - bunga means flower, while bangkai means corpse or cadaver; for the same reason, the same title is also attributed to Rafflesia which, like the titan arum, also grows in the rainforests of Sumatra).