A mixture of sweaty blanket and wet dog - Mr Stinky’s back in bloom

Monday, 21 October 2024

The plant known as Mr Stinky - or the Amorphophallus Konjac if you’re being formal - is sending out its potent fumes throughout Wellington’s Botanic Garden.

Originating from southwest China, the plant is located in Begonia House, where the flower can be smelt from quite a distance.

Dark purple in colour, with large stems sprouting upwards, the Konjac is hard to miss.

Raydeen Cuffe, visitor experience manager at the Wellington Gardens, compared the plant’s odour to a mixture of a sweaty blanket and wet dog.

“It permeates the space that it’s in,” she said. “Being in the Begonia House, it’s quite humid so it captures that smell.”

The reason for the strong smell is all down to reproduction, according to Cuffe. The plant sends off the odour to attract its natural pollinators, carrion flies.

Possessing the nickname “The Devil’s Tongue”, the Konjac made its entrance known when it arrived in the Gardens in 2009, with its foul smell making national news. Since then, Cuffe said that the plant has been a popular attraction with visitors when in bloom.

“The public love to come in and get a whiff.”

Due to its the unusual growth cycle, the flower is in bloom for about three weeks.

And the strong odour is around for only a few days. Cuffe said the flower has been in bloom between five days to a week so far, so urges visitors who are curious about the smell to come quick before the smell dissipates.