★ Thousands of people are flocking to the northern Swiss city of Basel to see a giant, stinky flower bloom for the first time. The amorphophallus titanum - known as corpse flower because it exudes a smell of rotting flesh - is the first to blossom in Switzerland in 75 years.
★ The flower first began to poke out of the soil in March, and in the past few days it had been growing at about six centimetres a day, according to Swissinfo news website.
★ Its mother plant last bloomed in the Frankfurt Palm Garden in 1992. Originally native to the tropical rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the plant requires a humid climate to grow and rarely blossoms, even in the wild.The flower's smell, said to be a cross between burnt sugar and rotting flesh, is designed to attract insects for pollination.
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