1. Flesh-colored flowers that smell of carrion
African Hydnora
Grown in the arid and barren desert regions of South Africa, the flower is a peculiar flesh-colored parasitic flower that sucks into the rhizomes of nearby shrubs. Clusters of foul-smelling flowers attract swarms of carrion beetles. If you smell the stench of carrion while strolling through the Namibian desert, it's not rotten meat, but the root parasitic hydnora africana. Hydnora africana grows in a few areas such as southwestern Namibia and capes in northern South Africa. It belongs to the genus Euphorbia. There are more than 2,000 species of Euphorbia plants worldwide. Commonly known in Namibia as euphorbia, it is a silvery-gray fleshy shrub up to two meters tall, with roots as hard as wood and a honeycomb-like shape.
Hydnora's parasite sucks it into the root diameter of Euphorbia 5 to 15 cm underground, and it is rarely encountered because the plant only exposes its exotic-looking flowers to the ground, often in the host bush. Hydnora flowers are capable of growing about 8 to 10 cm above ground, the flowers themselves are 4 to 7 cm tall, bright red in color, hollow in interior, fleshy, and four thick tulip-shaped petals joined together at the top.
Like the Khoi-San people of South Africa, the jackal and baboon eat the fruit of the Hydnora flower "calmly", and according to its characteristics, the locals call it the "salad of the jungle man".
2. Voodoo Lily
Voodoo Lily
Dracunculus vulgaris exudes a stench of carrion flesh, flowers and leaves, the color is like Burgundy wine, surrounded by many thin black branches, the scientific name is aka Arum dracunculus, and there are several other names for the image: "dragon-shaped black seaweed", "voodoo lily", "snake-shaped lily", "black sea potato", "black dragon", "dragon-shaped plant", "stinky lily". In Greece, it was called "Drakondia" and resembled a dragon or poisonous snake that hovered inside the buds of the Buddha. It grows in the Balkans, the Eurasian Mediterranean, greece's Crete and Aegean Islands, and southwestern Turkey. In some places, it is a veritable weed in its natural background.
Although they may appear like tropical plants, they are not; gardeners in the northwest report that they expand quickly in the wild and do not require any special care. They spread through self-propagation or lateral branches of the bulbs. If the seed heads are not collected, they will eventually scatter in the park, and beetles or ants will drag them away, scattering the "voodoo lilies" farther away.