What does the flower smell like?
• It smells like rotting fish. Natives in Sumatra locate the flower by smell from up to fifty yards away. Sometimes it is so strong that people cannot stand to be near it! According to a web page at Kew Gardens, Dr Geoffrey Kite was able to trap the odor and determine that the major constituents were dimethyl disulphide and dimethyl trisulphide, two compounds with sickening smells (something like rotting eggs).
