A stinking, blooming good time on Nova 100’s Jase & Lauren

This week on Nova 100’s Jase & Lauren, Lauren Phillips headed down the freeway to Geelong to check out the infamous corpse plant in all its glory.

High profile Geelong identities Bec Maddern and Tom Hawkins and Botanic Gardens curator Kelly joined the show to chat about the effect the corpse plant has been having on the city.

It might be the stinkiest flower on the planet, but for Kelly, the blooming of the corpse plant is like Christmas coming early.

“We’ve have had 13 days of warning. This time two weeks ago, we had no idea that we were going to have a corpse flower. That’s how fast and incredible this plant is.”

As for how it smells …

“Like I’m 100% plant nerd, and I was dubious that a plant could put out a smell that represented a dead animal,” Kelly said. “And that’s exactly what it smells like.”

Bec added “What’s the smell like? I thought about this, and why I’m actually so obsessed with this stupid flower … we hear about grim, terrible things every day, and that’s life. And you know what? To have a little bit of fun about a flower that flowers once every 10 years that actually is not that pretty and smells disgusting is a good break in the cycle that we live in.”

While Lauren reckons the corpse plant smells a bit like a hot Pilates class.