Something's foul and blooming in Australia

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http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-foul30.html

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Forget the sweet scent of roses -- Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens was suffused with an unusual stench on Friday, as the gardens' foul-smelling tongue orchid flowered for the second time in 30 years.

With its finger-like red flowers among yard-long, tongue-shaped leaves, the Papua New Guinea native orchid is one of several plants with flowers that smell like rotting meat to attract flies, which help its pollination.

The gardens' Tropical House curator, Jeremy Prentice, did his best to describe the odor:

"If you mixed, say, two- or three-day-old rotting flesh with manure you would get pretty close, I think," Prentice said. "It's very unusual."