Rare, Big, & Stinky

Behold — and avoid — the world’s smelliest flowers.

By Jessie Schiewe

Art: Katherine Shapiro — *Art:* *Katherine Shapiro*

Here’s hoping your Valentine’s bouquet doesn’t stink to high hell this year.

Although chances are, it probably won’t.

The most commonly considered “smelly flowers” are all rare, exotic varieties found in the deepest depths of rainforests and other untouched corners of the earth. They’re also all pretty huge; way too big to stick in a bouquet.

Top on the list of — literal — worst offenders are the “Dead Horse Arum Lily,” the “Stinking Root Parasite,” the “Carrion Flower,” the “Western Skunk Cabbage,” and the “Stinking Corpse Lily.” As you can see, their names alone say a lot about their stenches.

As for why some flowers stink and others don’t? It all has to do with attracting pollinators.

That’s the goal of every flower — be it lovely-smelling or offensive — it’s just a matter of which types of critters those scents will attract. Bugs that like dead stuff, like beetles or flies, will flock to flowers that reek of death and rot, unlike other pollinators, such as bees, that will go for plants with sweeter-smelling nectars.

If you’re someone who thinks roses are trite and cliché, just be glad they’re not odiferous. Whoever gave you them may be a sheep, but at least their gift won’t wreak havoc on your nasal cavities.

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