Am I weird because I want to go smell it and see if it really smells like rotting flesh?

The University of California Botanical Gardens have been very busy the last few days.

Trudy the Titan, a giant plant called the 'Corpse Plant' is one of the world's largest and rarest flowering structures. Trudy, according to BotanicalGarden.Berkeley.edu, a monstrous flowering plant typically takes seven years or longer to bloom.

The Botanical Gardens says the life cycle, although a very long process, rewards viewers with a very stinky smell and a large maroon colored bloom.

In the normal life cycle, the plant produces one single enormous branched leaf at a time that looks like a small tree reaching 10-15 feet. The leaf will go completely dormant after about 16 months while its underground tuber ‘rests’ for awhile. When it next sprouts, it will produce either another single leaf or an enormous bloom.

The flower bud may take months to form but only remains open for a day or two before collapsing to restart the cycle. The characteristic ‘corpse’ odor is only produced for about a day before the collapse. If pollinated, the stalk grows into a large club-like head of orange-red seeds.

 

Am I strange for wanting to smell this plant? I just want to see if I can handle it. Trudy has finally bloomed and the scent is just outrageous. People have described this a the smell of a corpse, the smell of dirty socks wrapped around rotten meat or like the worst fart you have ever smelled.

The odor that Trudy puts off is so strong, that it can be smelled up to half a mile away!

The smell doesn't last forever. It is usually only produced for about a day before the collapse.

The plant itself is stunning!

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