Carrion is a lovely word used for rotting or decomposing flesh, and so carrion flowers tend to smell like a pile of rotten flesh. This smell is not used to ward of potential predators but rather to attract insects. The insects are not used or consumed by the flower for nutrients but rather, like most with flowers, help to pollinate the flower. These flowers do not attract all insects, like butterflies and bees, but only insects actually attracted to carrion like carrion beetles and a variety of flies. These Putrid but fascinating flowers differ from one another in amazing ways and it is some of those that we can look at today.
Wild Sonnets: Thirty Poems About World Wildlife by Anthony Boniface at AbeBooks.co.uk - ISBN 10: 1908241209 - ISBN 13: 9781908241207 - Brambleby Books - 2013 - Softcover
"I don't think we came from monkeys. I think that's ridiculous. I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet." -Glenn Beck
I don't often write about biology here, but as many of you know, I often write about the history of the Universe, and that includes the Sun, the planets of the Solar System, and the Earth in particular.