We found that the corpse plant’s powerful emission rates can be an order of magnitude stronger than landfills – albeit only for two nights. These strong emissions are well designed to move far through the Sumatran jungle to attract carrion flies.

The odors are also resilient to atmospheric oxidation – the way organic compounds degrade in the atmosphere by reacting with oxidants in pollution such as ozone or nitrate radicals. Different compounds degrade at different rates – an important factor for attracting pollinators.

— Read more in How a corpse plant makes its terrible smell − it has a strategy, and its female flowers do most of the work at The Conversation.

Standing five feet away, I could smell it in the air. Acrid, damp, toe-curling—a memory from my past. The nose is a powerful historian, so it took only a few seconds to place it: the stench of the rat that died in the walls of my second apartment in New York City. Because management was hesitant to punch a hole in the sheetrock to retrieve it, the corpse dried out slowly, rendering one bedroom unlivable as my roommate slept on the sofa and recouped a few weeks of rent. It had been a long time since I smelled that smell. Most Proustian reveries originating in Bushwick won't transport you anywhere you want to go.

— Read more in A Stinky Pilgrimage To The Corpse Flower, With Notes Of Rat, Sweat, And Cheese at Defector.

But to fans of this specimen, she’s Putricia -- a portmanteau of “putrid” and “Patricia” eagerly adopted by her followers who, naturally, call themselves Putricians. For a week, she has graced a stately and gothic display in front of a purple curtain and wreathed in mist from a humidifier at the Royal Sydney Botanic Garden.

Her rise to fame has been rapid, with up to 20,000 admirers filing past for a moment in her increasingly pungent presence.

— Read more in A blooming plant that reeks of gym socks and rotting garbage has thousands lining up for a whiff at AP News.