Those Who Missed Whiff of Rare Bloom May Be Lucky Ones

They held their breath for days, waiting for a gigantic flower to bloom for the fourth time this century. Then they held their noses.

But titan arum, which hadn’t bloomed in London’s Kew Gardens in 33 years, didn’t live up to its reputation as a giant stinker.

“Disappointing,” said Austin Hardy, 11, who came Wednesday with five giggling friends wearing white masks in anticipation of a major gross-out. “I’ve got a very big nose and I couldn’t smell anything,” Monica Foster said.

Tuesday night, though, the 6-foot-tall bloom from Sumatra, Indonesia--where it is called the “corpse flower”--was something else, filling a Kew conservatory with its signature scent.

“It was quite overpowering at about 8 o’clock--a mixture of rotting flesh and burning sugar with ammonia over the top. It was a bit like a rubbish bin in summertime,” Kew botanist Peter Boyce said.