World's smelliest plant flowers at The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh
- Published
One of the world's largest and smelliest flowers has blossomed for the first time in Scotland.
Visitors have been queuing at The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh (RBGE). The flower is due to be open for two to three days.
The giant Amorphophallus Titanum has a strong smell of rotting flesh.
Horticulturist Sadie Barber says she was ''thrilled to finally see and smell" the plant after "12 years of careful cultivation''.
Officials said the garden would be open at the east gate on Inverleith Row until 21:00 on Saturday and Sunday to allow the maximum amount of visitors to view the flower.
Entry is the normal cost to enter the glasshouse of £5 for adults and £4 for concessions with children under 16 free.
The plant, which has the heaviest corm ever recorded (153.9kgs) has produced seven leaves in the 12 years that it has been at the garden, so horticulturists are "delighted to finally" have a flower.
Ms Barber, who was gifted the corm in 2003 by Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, Netherlands, said: "We are thrilled to finally see, and smell, this incredible curiosity of the plant world after 12 years of careful cultivation by the Horticulture team at RBGE.
"The spadix has so far reached an impressive height of 255cm and may even grow a few centimetres more in the next days.
"It really is one of the most extraordinary flowering plants we have ever seen, and great to think that something that grows naturally so far away can be enjoyed by visitors to the Garden here in Edinburgh.''
