EF Academy Oxford students visit the beautiful Kew Gardens

On Saturday 23rd April, students from EF Academy Oxford visited the Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew, which cover 326 acres of land and contain over one hundred world class attractions, from iconic buildings and glasshouses to inspirational art collections. The gardens also feature a treetop walkway, soaring 18 metres into a canopy of lime, sweet chestnut and oak trees.

Nestled within a glasshouse, students came across a rather rare botanic organism: The Titan Arum. Their report on this plant is as follows:

We saw and smelt  the foulest smelling flower in the world: The Titan Arum.

The titan arum of corpse flower is the worst smelling flower in the world. The flower produces strong, horrible smell of decaying meat. The name ‘corpse flower’ derived from its strong, unpleasant smell. It is a very rare flower, blooming only for two, three days and reappearing only after years. Corpse flower is also the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. One corpse flower can be 3 meters in height.

The corpse flower has a large bract and a long spike inside it. The intense, unpleasant smell of the flower comes from its spike. The bract of corpse flower has two different colors – deep green on outside and dark red on inside. The large corpse flowers bloom in just a couple of hours. The foul smell of the flower last for 12 hours. The intense smell of the plant also attracts pollinators like carrion flies.