Smelly Pouches

There is a Chinese saying that when there is a 陰 yin there will be a 陽 yang: a negative will have a matching positive. So if the butterfly ginger is the positive gorgeous flower, is there a negative one? Oooo, yes!

We purchased our house from a landscape gardener; the gardener collected plants. Since Florida and its flora are new to us we decided to wait a couple of seasons before making any changes to our garden.

There was this big patch of low growing succulents near our front door. It wasn’t much to look at and nothing happened for two years. Then it surprised us by producing these big pouches.One day, when I walked pass the plants I could smell a whiff of stench. I didn’t know what it was and started to investigate. One of the pouches has opened up and it smelled so foul. It’s the smell of rotten meat. That wasn’t the worst part. The next day, I saw maggots wiggling in the centre of the opened pouch flower and a warty toad was sticking its long tongue out to feast on the larva. After that shocking sight I got rid of the smelly plants in record time.

The gardener kept a specimen of this plant in a flower pot far away from the house. I have left it alone. After 6 years it flowers for the first time and it is certainly unusual.