Plant’s deathly stench may return

DUNEDIN residents may be in for another stinky summer spectacle from the botanic garden’s corpse plant.

The corpse plant is famous for producing one of the world’s largest flowers with a nauseating smell comparable to rotting flesh.

This week, the garden’s staff will weigh the plant’s bulblike underground stem — called a corm — to get an idea if it will unleash another rare flower.

If the corm weighs more than 20kg, it is an indication the plant has reached its potential to flower.

Thousands of people flocked to see the Dunedin plant’s first and only flowering in February 2018.

The flower typically lasts for only 2436 hours.

The plant regularly produces a single leaf the size of a small tree that reaches up to 6m high and 4m wide in the wild for most of its life. — RNZ