REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KEPAHIANG – The corpse flower  or Amorphophallus titanium, is blooming in the breeding area, Tebat Monok, Kepahiang, Bengkulu. And the stinky flower has attracted two forein tourists.

“Two foreign tourists from Japan and Italy visited the corpse flower that we plant in this garden,” Holidin, the owner of the corpse flower breeding said.

Amorphophallus titanium is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. Because of its odor like the smell of decomposing mammal, the flower is known as corpse flower. The flower can reach over 3 meters in height.  

Originally, both tourists were intended to watch blooming Rafflesia in Bukit Daun forest, but they could not find any blooming Rafflesia.  Instead, they visited the corpse flower breeding and they were lucky since the blooming titanium corpse flower could be seen by any tourist.

The flower will bloom perfectly in the next four days. The Japanese tourist, Yukihoro Fujimem, said it was the first time she saw the flower. “I actually wanted to see Rafflesia. But luckily I can see the blooming corpse flower,” said the professor in Kyoto Prefectural University.

Holidin said, he had planted hundred roots in the two hectare breeding area since 1998 privately. He plants four kinds of corpse flower, which are titanium, gigas, variabilis, and paeonifolius.

The breeding area should be enclosed as the roots attract wild boar. “Wild boar likes the root,” he said. Many flowers are dead because the boar eats the root.