Enchanting Dead Horse Arum Lily: Unraveling Nature’s Smelly Beauty

Helicodiceros muscivorus, commonly known as the Dead Horse Arum Lily, is a perennial plant, typically characterized by narrow and long leaves and a tuberous root system. Native to Europe and Western Asia, this plant is particularly admired for its large and beautiful flowers.

However, catching a glimpse of these blossoms in full bloom can be a challenge due to their extremely short flowering period. Regrettably, an oddity of these otherwise attractive plants is that they emit an odor reminiscent of decaying flesh or smelly socks, earning them a reputation for being some of the smelliest flowers in the world.

Growth and Distribution

Growing Environment

Dead Horse Arum Lilies produce an offensive smell akin to rotting meat. This aroma is designed to attract female bluebottle flies for pollination. When these flies land on the plant, the large blossoms trap them inside for the night. The next day, the Arum Lily opens its flower, releasing the fly covered in pollen. As the fly visits the next Dead Horse Arum Lily, the process of pollination is completed.

Distribution Range

The Dead Horse Arum Lily is native to Europe and Western Asia. As such, it is accustomed to the temperate climate of these regions and grows best under these conditions.

Despite its unusual and somewhat unpleasant characteristics, the plant is still appreciated for its strikingly unique appearance, serving as an intriguing component of the natural biodiversity in these areas.

The Dead Horse Arum Lily (Helicodiceros muscivorus) is a tropical perennial herb with the following features:

Morphology and Characteristics

• Stem: Thick and shortened, usually as an underground rhizome, rarely ascending or as an erect above-ground stem, densely covered with leaf scars.
• Leaves: Long-stalked, with a long sheath at the lower part; the leaf blade is usually shield-shaped when young, often arrow-heart-shaped in mature plants, with the edge entire or shallowly wavy. Some leaves have feather-like divisions nearly reaching the midrib. The primary side veins of the lower part often bend downward, rarely radiating, mostly forming right or acute angles with the base veins of the latter lobe. The primary side veins extending from the middle of the midrib are numerous and obliquely lifted. The collecting veins are fine and gather into thin collective veins between the primary side veins.
• Flower: The flower stem emerges from behind the leaf, often in a shortened, bract-covered complex. The spathe’s tube portion is egg-shaped or oblong, persistent, and irregularly torn during fruiting. The lamina is usually boat-shaped, reflexed later, and detaches from the upper edge of the tube. The spadix is shorter than the spathe, thick, cylindrical, and erect. The female inflorescence is short, cone-cylindrical, and the sterile male inflorescence is usually noticeably narrowed. The fertile male inflorescence is cylindrical. The appendix is cone-shaped, with irregular grooves. The flowers are unisexual and lack a perianth.
• Male Flowers: Fertile male flowers consist of a synandrous stamen column, inverted pyramid-shaped, flat at the top, nearly hexagonal, with 3-8 anthers. The anthers are linear-oblong, with an anther septum, closely adjoining, usually extending almost to the base of the stamen, with short slits. The pollen is powdery.
• Female Flowers: Consist of 3-4 carpels, the ovary is ovoid or oblong, the style is initially short and later indistinct, the stigma is capitate, the top is somewhat 3-4-lobed. There is 1 locule, but sometimes the upper end is 3-4-locular; there are a few ovules that are orthotropous or anatropous.
• Fruit and Seed: The berries are mostly red, elliptical, inverted cone-shaped or nearly spherical, topped with persistent stigmas, 1-locular, with a few or single seeds. The seeds are nearly spherical, erect, with a barely noticeable hilum. The seed coat is thin, the tegmen is thick, smooth, the inner tegmen is thin, smooth, and the funicle is short. The endosperm is abundant, and the embryo is bent towards the top of the ovary chamber inside the seed.

This plant’s unusual adaptations for attracting and trapping flies for pollination, along with its striking physical characteristics, make it a unique and fascinating part of the botanical world.