But anyway, in the Arum family (Araceae) there are a number of plant genera that have big flowers that mimic dead, rotting, stinking gunk. They do this so that insects of the right sort (a relative term, I suppose) will buzz in from far and wide in search of nasty, smelly things to crawl around on. Pollination occurs. The plant gets what it wants.
The plant from this group that I am most frequently asked about is, of course, Amorphophallus titanum. For a few months of the year this plant spends its time underground as a dormant bulb. (Imagine something that looks like a grocery-store water chestnut, but that is the size of a preschooler.) Most years it produces a huge, squamous stalk that is taller than George Kerry. This stalk is topped by a feathery grouping of leaves---very neat. (Actually, the entire stalk and leafy ensemble is but a single leaf.) Every now and then, the plant forgoes the leaf, and in its place makes a single flower. This flower has a huge cowl (called a spathe) and a bizarre...uh...columnar pillar (called a spadix) that pokes out of the cowl in an embarrassingly erect way and extends skywards for about two meters (six feet). It is crazy big. But even more spectacular than the flower's appearance is the smell. A common English name for this plant is "corpse flower," and indeed this flower's stench is what I expect Hannibal Lecter's compost pile would smell like on a hot August afternoon.
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