LAKEPORT, N.H. (AP) – A rare “corpse flower” started blooming on Monday – and if you want to see it and smell and its pungent odor of decaying flesh you’ve got just a couple of days.

The plant’s owner hopes to take advantage of the rare blooming to raise money for children’s programs sponsored by the Kiwanis Club in Laconia and LPRGHealthcare Dental Resource Center.

The flower, nicknamed “Tilly” the Titan, is available for viewing at the Lakeport Fire Station. The admission costs $10.

The “corpse flower” – or amorphophallus titanum – is native to the equatorial rain forests of Sumatra, where it is pollinated by carrion and dung beetles attracted by its foul aroma. The plant was discovered in 1878 by an Italian botanist, Odoardo Beccari, and first bloomed in the United States in 1937 at the New York Botanical Gardens.

The flower resembles a massive jack-in-the-pulpit and grows from a large tuber or bulb. It weighs as much as 170 pounds. It can reach nine feet in height and open to a diameter of three or four feet. The plant blooms rarely and then for just three to five days.

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On the Net:

hppt://www.laconiaschools.org/corpseflower