By Associated Press, 5/20/2003

FULLERTON, Calif. — It smells like road kill, stands 6 feet tall, and last bloomed three years ago.

Tiffy, one of the world's biggest, stinkiest flowers, is expected to unfurl its petals Tuesday at the California State University, Fullerton Arboretum. It will be the first Amorphophallus titanum to bloom in Southern California in a year.

A similar plant bloomed in July 2002 at Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas, where crowds gathered to smell the odor that gives the plant, also known as Titan Arum, its unappetizing nickname, the "corpse flower."

Native to Indonesia, Titan Arum blooms only a few times in its 40-year life span and rarely blooms in cultivation. For eight hours, it emits a nauseating odor to attract pollinating, cadaver-eating beetles.

The plant has been seen in bloom only about 15 times since its first U.S. display in New York in 1937. About 63,000 people flocked to the Huntington Library in San Marino when a Titan bloomed in 1999 and hundreds went to the arboretum in Fullerton in 2000 to inspect Tiffy.

In June 2002, thousands lined up to see and smell the corpse flower at the University of Wisconsin.