1. Rafflesia, South-East Asia
The plant with the world’s largest bloom (1m across) has a reddish-brown, fleshy flower and stinks like a rotting corpse.
2. Azara microphylla, Chile and Argentina
Not suitable for those on a diet, this small temptress of a tree smells like vanilla or white chocolate.
3. Hydnora Africana, Africa
This vicious flower attacks the roots of nearby shrubs; it attracts carrion beetles with its putrid stench to aid pollination.
4. Welwitschia mirabilis, Southern Africa
This plant never sheds its two leaves – they become tattered with age – up to 1,500 years.
5. Venus Flytrap, USA
This carnivorous plant can trap its insect meal in 0.1 seconds before sealing its ‘jaws’ to digest its prey.
6. Dracunculus vulgaris, Europe
This friendly flower (the ‘stink lily’) releases a smell of rotting flesh to attract and trap flies.
7. Wolffia angusta, Australia
The world’s smallest flowering plant;several could fit inside this ‘o’.
8. Wollemia nobilis, Australia
Until 1994 this ancient tree was known only from 120-million-year-old fossils – there are fewer than 100 in the wild.
9. Amorphophallus, Pacific Islands
This plant’s scientific title translates literally as ‘shapeless male genitalia.’ The clue is in the name…
10. Nuytsia floribunda, Australia
This parasitic tree attacks the roots of other plants – and sometimes, by mistake, underground cables.
