The 'bulb' (it is actually a tuber) that I get the most e-mail requests for is the Dead Horse Arum, Helicodiceros muscivorum, or maybe it's called Drancunculus muscivorum now, I'm not sure.
E. A. Bowles, the great British plantsman, had something to say about it:
"the most fiendish plant I know, the sort of thing Beelzebub might pluck to make a bouquet for his mother-in-law - a mingling of unwholesome greens, purples, and pallid pinks, the livery of putrescence, in fact ... It only exhales its stench for a few hours after opening, and during that time it is better to stand far off, and look at it through a telescope."
This amazing plant comes from the Mediterranean islands of Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics. The inflorescence is large, mine are about 12" long by about 8" wide, so you certainly can't miss them, and the odor is quite dead-horse-ish. The spathe, unlike most arums, hangs down and is blotched all over with pinks and purples, plus it has fairly large coarse black hairs scattered over its surface. The spadix hangs down too, and is shaggy like the tail of an animal. So, it not only smells like a dead horse (it really does!), but it looks a bit like the posterior of a dead horse, with flies that pollinate it entering an orifice under the tail-like spadix. Mother Nature has a sense of hu
mor, albeit a bit twisted. I won't say what the emerging bud looks like, but it isn't fit for polite company.
Mine are blooming now, and I know as soon as I step outside that they have opened. As Bowles says, the odor doesn't last long, but I can even smell it wafting through my open office window. Here's a picture of one this morning that had just opened and was covered in flies.
I took the above quote from Deni Brown's outstanding book "Aroids - Plants of the Arum Family". If you are interested in aroids, this book is a must have, and a really fun read.
I Googled 'dead horse' just for fun, and found this great link: http://wilk4.com/humor/humorm170.htm
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