Wollongong Botanic Garden's Batflower blooms. But how does it smell?

In early 2025, Sydney Botanic Garden’s corpse flower, aptly named Putricia, started to bloom. During her short period of flowering over 1.7 million people tuned into the livestream, while more than 27000 queued, often long into the night, to get a whiff of her aroma, described as being not unlike vomit, wet socks or rotting flesh. Delightful. 

I missed out on seeing, and smelling, Putricia in the flesh and so when Wollongong Botanic Garden announced that their White Batflower (Tacca integrifolia) had bloomed and promised a ‘soft musky rotting scent’ I didn’t have to be told twice.

As far as I’m concerned, the Sir Joseph Banks Glasshouse is an under-appreciated part of the gardens. Housing plants from the wet tropics, deserts and warmer regions, it has some truly spectacular specimens. Having grown up with a cacti loving and growing dad, I usually spend a bit of time in the first half of the glasshouse perusing the cactus but this time I just wanted to get straight to the smelly star of the show, the Batflower.

Batflowers are native to tropical and subtropical forests in hilly areas of South Asia, including Pakistan, Java, Bangladesh and Eastern China, and as soon as you open the door into the tropical section of the glasshouse, you’re hit by the thick humidity that they thrive in. 

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting but this plant is stunning, as in, stop you in your tracks beautiful.  The specimen in the gardens had two blooms at the time I visited, both at different stages of growth and it was easy to see the bat, wings spread open, that gives the plant its common name.

Those ‘wings’ are actually special leaves called bracts that frame the flower and give it its dramatic shape. In the centre sits a cluster of dark purple-black blooms, and long whisker-like bracts spill out onto the surrounding leaves and can grow upwards of 30 centimetres. 

And now for the big reveal – how did it smell? There was a bit of waiting around while a couple slowly wandered past but as soon as the coast was clear, I leant in and took a long, deep sniff and … well, there wasn't much to it. Maybe a hint of muskiness but I was expecting more of a pungent punch like that of a stinkhorn. 

I sniffed the upper bracts, the central flowers that will become the fleshy fruits eaten by rodents and small mammals, and even gave the surrounding air a bit of a whiff. Perhaps I was inhaling at the wrong time of day, or the wrong part of the flowering cycle? Maybe I shouldn't have headed in with Putricia front of mind.

While the lack of an overwhelming pong was a little disappointing, those of you who prefer flowers that don’t smell like death but still love a showstopper should get along to visit this stunning flower.

Where: Sir Joseph Banks Glasshouse, Wollongong Botanic Gardens

When: 7am-4pm weekdays and 10am-4pm weekends and public holidays.