16 Flowers with the Most Repulsive Scents in the World

Published by nobert soloria bermosa
December 8, 2008, Category: Botany

Beautiful flowers that smell like hell.

These organisms look like heaven but they smell like hell.

Starfish Cactus (Stapelia grandiflora)

This unique flowering plant named as Starfish Cactus although it is not related to cacti at all is also commonly known as Starfish Flower.

Elephant Foot Yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius)

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This lovely-looking flower grows in wild form in my beloved country -Philippines and in other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. Elephant Foot Yam or Whitespot Giant Arum or Stink Lily, is a tropical tuber crop that offers excellent scope for adoption in the tropical countries as a cash crop due to its production potential and popularity as a vegetable in various delicious cuisines. Elephant Foot Yam is basically a crop from Southeast Asian origin.

Stapelia gigantea

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Stapelia gigantea is another flowering plant that is related to the Starfish Cactus. Stapelia gigantea sometimes also goes by the name of Stapelia nobilis and Stapelia marlothii. They share the same trait with Starfish Flower; they both have a stinking smell.

These are flowers that emit an odor that smells like rotting flesh.

Hydnora africana

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This peculiar parasitic plant known as Hydnora africana is a plant native to southern Africa. The plant grows underground, except for a fleshy flower that emerges above ground and emits an odor of feces to attract its natural pollinators, dung beetles, and carrion beetles. The flowers act as traps for a brief period retaining the beetles that enter, then releasing them when the flower is fully opened.

Titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum)

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Titan Arum’s is a unique plant with a unique name. It is derived from Ancient Greek amorphos, “without form, misshapen” plus phallos, “penis”, and titan, “giant”. This flowering plant has the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The Titan Arum was originally discovered in Sumatra, Indonesia. They can be found in many botanic gardens around the world but is still indigenous only to the tropical forests of Sumatra. Due to its fragrance, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal, the Titan Arum is also known as the “Corpse Flower” or “Corpse Plant” (in Indonesian, “bunga bangkai” – bunga means flower, while bangkai means corpse or cadaver.

Dog Stinkhorn (Mutinus caninus)

Anemone Stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra)

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Commonly known as the anemone stinkhorn and sea anemone fungus, this organism with a foul smell is a common and widespread Australian fungus. It is likewise recognizable for its anemone shape when mature. These are usually found in gardens on mulch and in grassy areas, it resembles a red star-shaped structure covered in brownish slime on a white stalk. It attracts flies, which spread its spores.

Rafflesia arnoldii

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Perhaps the most popular species of flower in the world with a bad smell is the Rafflesia arnoldii because it is noted for producing the largest individual flower on earth. It grows only in the rainforest of my beloved country – Philippines and in Sumatra, Borneo and in the Malay Archipelago.

Rafflesia keithii

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Rafflesia keithii is a parasitic flowering plant endemic to Borneo. It is named after Harry George Keith, former Conservator of Forests in Sabah.

Carrion flowers attract mostly scavenging flies and beetles as pollinators.

Rafflesia kerrii

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Rafflesia kerrii is found in the rainforest of southern Thailand and peninsular Malaysia, with the most famous population in the Khao Sok National Park. The local Thai names are Bua Phut and Bua Tum.

Rafflesia tuan-mudae

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Rafflesia tuan-mudae is a member of the Rafflesiaceae family. It lives as a parasite on the Tetrastigma vine. The enormous flowers may reach up to 1M in diameter. The buds normally emerge where the vine is growing along the ground, unlike some of the other Rafflesia species whose buds can emerge from vines hanging in the air.

Dead Horse Arum Lily (Helicodiceros muscivorus)

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Dead Horse Arum Lily is an ornamental plant native to the northwestern Mediterranean region. It reproduces the stench of rotting meat, attracting carrion-seeking blowflies which act as pollinators.

Some species may trap the insects temporarily to ensure the gathering and transfer of pollen.

Dragon Arum (Dracunculus vulgaris)

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Dragon Arum is also commonly known with the names the Black Arum, the Voodoo Lily, the Snake Lily, the Stink Lily, the Black Dragon, Dragonwort, and Ragons. Part of its native range is Greece and the plant is called there as Drakondia, the long spadex being viewed as a small dragon hiding in the spathe.

Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

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This plant is known with a variety of common names like Clumpfoot Cabbage, Foetid Pothos, Meadow Cabbage, Polecat Weed, Skunk Cabbage, Swamp Cabbage, and simply Skunk Cabbage. This plant is a low growing, foul smelling plant that prefers wetlands. It can be found naturally in eastern North America and also in northeastern Asia, in eastern Siberia, northeastern China and Japan.

Wild Arum (Arum maculatum)

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This species of plant is widespread across temperate northern Europe and is known by an abundance of common names including Wild arum, Lords and Ladies, Jack in the Pulpit, Devils and Angels, Cows and Bulls, Cuckoo-Pint, Adam and Eve, Bobbins, Naked Boys, Starch-Root and Wake Robin. Male flower of this plant has a ring of hairs forming an insect trap. Insects are trapped beneath the ring of hairs and are dusted with pollen by the male flowers before escaping and carrying the pollen to the spadices of other plants, where they pollinate the female flowers.

Western Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus)

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Western Skunk Cabbage sometimes called Yellow Skunk Cabbage is a plant found in swamps and wet woods, along streams and in other wet areas of the Pacific Northwest. It is among the first flowers to appear in spring. The skunk cabbage also produces heat. During the winter the heat it produces melts the snow around it so that it is able to survive.

These flowers are called Carrion flowers or Stinking flowers.