McMaster invites you to come smell Arthur the corpse flower

What's taller than a human, as smelly as a dead body and open to visitors?

In Hamilton, the answer is Arthur, a corpse flower in McMaster University's teaching greenhouse.

The rare flower, which is a little over six feet tall, is in full bloom- and full fragrance. In cold weather, the titan arum can take as long as a month to go from bud to bloom, said Susan Dudley, a professor of biology. But in the current heat, it's going much faster.

Corpse flowers rely on carrion beetles and flies for pollination, which means it smells like the name implies. Dudley says during a past flowering episode, people came from the student pub next door to complain. 

"People who have smelled corpses tell me yes, it does smell like that," she said. "To me, it smells like garbage, or meat that's gone off."

McMaster has three flowering corpse flowers — Arthur, Phoebe and Magnus. Arthur is named after Arthur Yeas, a former caretaker of the greenhouse. There are also three smaller flowers that have never bloomed, therefore haven't earned names yet. In the greenhouse, the plant blooms once every couple of years.  

The flower is classified as threatened and native to western Sumatra. The Toronto Zoo had a similar flower bloom last fall, and curatorial gardener Paul Gellatly froze its pollen. He's using it to experiment cross pollination with the McMaster flower.

The McMaster greenhouse will be open until 11 p.m. Friday, and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.