7 Plants & Flowers with Spooky Scents
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Not every flowering plant “smells like roses”, some of them release a chemical compound with a scent that smells like death or decay. Gross, right? But plants like the Corpse Flower and Dead Horse Arum release these scents to attract carrion-loving flies and beetles to help pollinate them.
These chemical compounds, called volatile organic compounds, are produced by these plants and can include:
Putrescine - produced when amino acids break down during decomposition and are associated with the smell of rotting flesh.
Cadaverine - another decomposition compound formed from amino-acid breakdown, contributing to the characteristic odor of a corpse.
Dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide - sulfur-containing compounds that can smell like rotten cabbage, onions, or decaying organic matter.
Now that you know some of the compounds that create the foul-smelling flowers, here are 7 of the most popular and unique flowering plants that smell like death.
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7. Eastern Skunk Cabbage
Found in wet marshes in Northeastern America, this plant is the first to bloom in early spring due to its thermogenesis (the process where it creates its own heat to break through the cold ground). It can heat up the air surrounding the plant up to 20 degrees hotter than the actual temperature.
The heat also helps spread its signature stinky scent of dead skunk to ward off predators and attract pollinating flies. Like many of the plants in this list, Eastern Skunk Cabbage uses thermogenesis to spread the scent and mimic the conditions of warm decay.
6. Corpse Flower
The Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus Titanum) is named for just how foul-smelling it is. Native to the rainforests of Sumatra, this giant flower can grow more than 10 feet tall and can take 4-6 years to bloom.
When it finally does, the flower releases a powerful smell often compared to rotting flesh, attracting flies and insects. The flower can heat itself during blooming through thermogenesis, helping spread its stinky scent to increase pollination. The flowering spectacle is short-lived, however, its bloom typically lasts just a day or two before fading.
5. Voodoo Lily
When the Voodoo Lily (Dracunculus Vulgaris) blooms, it produces an odor often compared to rotting meat, attracting flies and other carrion-loving insects to help with pollination. Once a fly enters the flower, it becomes trapped via the flower’s “slip-and-hold” making sure the fly cannot leave until pollination is complete.
Once the plant has determined the pollinator has successfully done its job, it releases it back into the world.
4. Dead Horse Arum
The Dead Horse Arum (Helicodiceros Muscivorus) is native to Mediterranean islands including Corsica and Sardinia, and has a hairy, reddish-purple flower that looks surprisingly lifelike to a piece of rotting meat.
When the plant blooms, its flower produces a powerful odor that resembles a dead animal, attracting blowflies looking for carrion, though its scent is most pungent just after sunrise when light hits the flower. The plant also produces its own heat, helping spread its stench and creating conditions that mimic a warm carcass.
3. Rafflesia
Rafflesia (Rafflesia Arnoldi) is famous for being both enormous and absolutely foul-smelling. Its flowers can reach more than 3 feet across, making it the largest individual flower in the world.
When it blooms, it releases an odor reminiscent of rotting meat to attract flies or beetles as pollinators. Rafflesia has no stems, leaves, or roots of its own. Instead, it lives as a parasite inside tropical vines and emerges only when it’s ready to flower. And after waiting months for its spectacular bloom, you’ll only have a few days to enjoy it before it begins to wither.
2. Carrion Flower
The Carrion Flower (Stapelia Gigantea) is native to parts of southern Africa and has large, star-shaped flowers that can stretch more than a foot across. Much like its namesake, it carries the unmistakable odor of rotting flesh to attract flies.
The flies mistake the flower for a dead animal and arrive looking for a place to feed or lay eggs. The plant even has wrinkled, hairy petals that make the illusion more convincing.
Fun fact: This star shaped and flowering plant is a succulent and part of the milkweed family.
1. Stinkhorn Mushroom
Part of the Phallaceae family, this mushroom emerges from egg-shaped structures in soil or mulch and can grow very fast, sometimes reaching maturity within just a few hours. Their signature feature is a slimy, foul-smelling spore mass called the gleba, which can smell like rotting flesh, feces, or sewage.
As with the rest of the plants in this list, the scent attracts flies and beetles, which feed on the slime and inadvertently carry the mushroom’s spores to new locations. While not a flowering plant, we had to include it as it is a truly unique plant that starts life in more of an egg type situation in gelatinous structures, then they use water pressure instead of cell division like other similar plants.
These carrion plants have a stinky reputation, but they have all adapted for reproduction through insects by mimicking the decaying conditions flies and beetles prefer. Some plants even produce their own heat to further spread their scent, or look like decomposing matter to look more appetizing to their preferred pollinators. While we won’t be planting Eastern Skunk Cabbage or a Carrion Flower in our gardens anytime soon, we can appreciate their interesting adaption and smelly aromas from a distance.
