A voluptuous "corpse flower" is about to unfurl its rare and horrendously stinky flower soon at the University of California's Botanical Garden at Berkeley.

The compelling features of the Amorphophallus titanium, known also as the Titan arum, corpse flower or "stinky plant," are its claim as the largest flower-like structure in the plant world and a blossom that emits a fragrance resembling rotten flesh. The plant typically takes at least seven years of growth before it blooms. In this case, the plant is 10 years old.

Its owner, Bill Weaver of Sunnyvale, said he is loaning the plant to the botanical garden, not to fend off complaints from neighbors once it blooms, but to share it with the world.

"I couldn't just have it bloom here," he said last week from his home. "It would be like having a piece of priceless art and sticking it your attic."

Paul Licht, director of the botanical garden, said he is delighted to be able to share the plant with the public during the garden's open hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

But he cautioned that time may be of the essence, as the plant is expected to blossom within the next few days, possibly as early as Wednesday (July 13). Once that happens, the smell is at its most intense for about 10 hours; the bloom lasts about 72 hours.

When the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers had a blooming Titan arum in May, it drew crowds estimated at 16,000 over three days.

The plant was first reported in Sumatra, Indonesia, in 1878. Related to the family of plants called "Voodoo lilies," it produces one gigantic, branched leaf that looks like a small tree and reaches 10-15 feet in height.

The foul smell of its bloom draws flies and carrion beetles to pollinate the plant, which has an average life span of about 40 years.

The botanical garden has 10 other titan arums, but none have bloomed. All of the stinky plants now on exhibit at the garden have been raised from the same seed batch. They represent the full growth cycle of the plant over seven years, from the early "corm" phase to bloom.

"It's kind of rewarding to raise it from a 'baby' state and to see it growing and blooming," said Weaver, who describes himself as a "plant nut" with interesting vegetation in all of his own four greenhouses.

In keeping with a national tradition of calling the plant by a human name beginning with the letter "T," Weaver dubbed his plant "Trudy the Titan" in honor of a neighbor who helped him build one of his greenhouses.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The UC Botanical Garden, located at 200 Centennial Dr. in the midst of Strawberry Canyon just above the campus, hosts 12,800 different species and subspecies of plants, making it one of the largest and most diverse collections in the United States. It also has a large number of rare and endangered California native plants on display, with many of them part of its collection maintained for the national Center for Plant Conservation.

Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and $1 for children ages 3 through 18.