Hundreds of curious visitors have braved long queues in the French city of Nantes to catch a rare glimpse of an enormous flower dubbed "Titan's Penis" that appears only once a decade and has a deeply unpleasant odour.

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More than 2,000 people rushed to see the Amorphophallus Titanum, literally "the giant strangely shaped penis," at the city's Jardin des Plantes after it began flowering on Sunday.

The flower, also known as the "corpse flower", is famous for its deeply unpleasant odour, reminiscent of rotting meat.

The phallus-shaped flower is one of the largest in the world, reaching heights of up to three metres (10 feet), though the one in Nantes measures only 1.6 metres.

It appears once every 10 years and lasts for only 72 hours.

The plant, endemic to western Sumatra, is rarely seen in the wild and is considered endangered as its natural habitat succumbs to widespread logging. It is held in only about twenty botanical gardens in the world.

"It is a pretty flower, well-designed, well-structured," said one of the visitors, Christian Hamon.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)



LIVE: Titan's Penis (from the website of the city of Nantes)

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