Cambridge orchid in bloom smells like rotting cabbage

Visitors to a assemblage plot tin dainty their nostrils to the heady scent of "rotting cabbages oregon decomposing dormant rats" arsenic a "rare" orchid blooms.

Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis is emitting its delightful aroma astatine the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

The plant, from Asia, flowers each 3 to 4 years but "it's precise uncommon to spot it successful angiosperm extracurricular its earthy habitat", the assemblage plot said.

The "total stinker" is irresistible to carrion flies which pollinate it.

Posting astir the orchid connected Facebook, and inviting visitors to illustration the nasal nasty, the plot wrote: "You'll cognize you're getting adjacent erstwhile you commencement to odor the delicate aroma of rotting cabbages.

"The odour has besides been described arsenic smelling similar 'dead rats decomposing adjacent to rotting fish'.

"To the carrion flies and beetles that pollinate it successful the wild, it smells amazing."

The aroma comes from "mimicking thing that is rotting, and it is doing that to pull carrion flies, which are insects that provender connected rotting nutrient and vegetables", the plot said.

The Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis is an epiphyte - a works that grows connected different works but gets its ain nutrients from the surrounding aerial and rainwater.

Volunteer Phil Gould, who has been tending the orchid, said it holds a "malodorous fascination" for him.

And they bash not yet deliberation it has reached its "ponging peak", but said that should beryllium "any clip soon".

The botanic plot is nary alien to smelly plants. Its Titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) plant, with an aroma akin to rotting flesh, attracted hoards of visitors erstwhile it bloomed successful 2004, 2015 and 2017.