Canberra's corpse flower is the latest stinking blossom to draw a crowd, with the national botanic gardens prepared for a long day ahead.
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00:00Well, catch a whiff of this.
00:04Move over Patricia and Patricia's sister in Sydney because we have our very own corpse
00:08flower blooming here in the nation's capital for the very first time.
00:12We've come on a good day today because it smells more like mouldy laundry, I'm told,
00:16as opposed to the smell of a dead rat as it did yesterday.
00:19But to hear more, we're joined by Acting Nursery Manager, Carol.
00:22Carol, tell us, how much harder is it to grow these plants here in the capital?
00:26It's really challenging to grow these plants here in Canberra.
00:29It gets very cold in the Canberra winter, down to minus 9, and these plants like a daytime
00:34temperature of around 30 degrees, which we maintain year-round, with high humidity as
00:38well, which is quite challenging, but we're able to maintain great conditions.
00:42We didn't think we had the right conditions to get this plant to flower stage, but we're
00:47really confident now that we do have the right conditions, and we also have the right conditions
00:51to grow our native Amorphophallus species, the Amorphophallus pianifolius and the Amorphophallus
00:56galbra, and we're really hoping that we can get them to flower stage now and bring them
01:00to the public as well.
01:01And with those conditions in mind, is it a bit of a coincidence that three have bloomed
01:05at once?
01:06It is.
01:07We all have our Amorphophallus titanums in slightly different conditions around the country.
01:12We're also located in different areas with different staff looking after them.
01:15It is a big coincidence that they're all blooming at the same time at the moment.
01:19There are several thoughts about why that's happening, and it could be because the plants
01:23are all around about the same age, or it could be because the conservation program
01:27really ramped up around that 15-year-ago mark, so there's a lot more awareness about these
01:31plants, and we're hoping that we can get it to bloom again and not wait another 15 years.
01:37And unfortunately, this plant doesn't yet have a name, but are there any names on the
01:40list yet?
01:41There's a lot of names flying around on social media, and I heard some more on the radio
01:45this morning.
01:46I think everything happened so fast for us.
01:49This bloomed a lot quicker than we expected it to, so we're really hoping that we can
01:53put the call out and maybe have a name before it blooms again.
01:55Well, there you have it.
01:57It's been flowering since 1.30pm on Saturday.
02:00Just over 100 lucky people will be allowed to come in here today and view the corpse
02:04flower before it does go dormant.