CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
For the first time since 2014, inner-city Sydney is the place to be!
In the midst of the closed down shopfronts that once hosted exciting nightlife venues and the empty high-rise Airbnbs, a crowd of excited people has gathered for the last two days.
No, the British DJ Fred Again isn’t back in Australian and announcing surprise shows, and the Matildas aren’t playing.
It’s a flower.
A big stinky flower, that is huge.
Thousands of Sydneysiders and tourists have lined up for hours in the city’s botanic gardens overnight for the rare opportunity to see and smell the pungent ‘corpse flower’ in full bloom.
Also known as the amorphophallus titanum, the flower is notorious for smelling like rotting flesh, and only blooms for about 24 hours – after taking nearly four hours to completely unfurl.
This particular plant has not bloomed for 15 years before this week, and has been live streamed for the last few weeks, as this previously unknown ‘corpse flower enthusiasts’ waited for the word to rush to Sydney’s Palm House in the Botanic Gardens.
This kind of excitement is so unfamiliar to the city of Sydney that the local council has had to install crowd control measures, with barrier fences and security guards on site to ensure nobody gets punched in the head.
Across the road from Palm House, the Art Gallery Of NSW just wishes they could generate this much interest in their $344m renovations.
Sorry Vincent Van Gogh, but Australia’s greatest collection of local and international art simply does not get people up and about like a giant stinky flower.
It is not yet known if the lines of excited flower nerds will result in relentless noise complaints from nearby property investors, but it seems that with the insulation of 30 hectares of Parklands – this harmless fun may be allowed to continue for the final fews hours that the flower is blooming
Sydney is back!
