There was something rotten at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign last month.
In fact, the rotten smell had something to do with Bucky Badger.
The University of Illinois' titan arum - or "corpse flower" - bloomed for the first time on July 15, 2011.
And this particular stinky flower has direct ties to UW-Madison.
The Illinois corpse flower, nicknamed "Titania," was cultivated from a seed given to the Illini 10 years ago by UW-Madison Botany Garden Director Mo Fayyaz.
Seeds from the pungent UW-Madison flower, nicknamed "Big Bucky," were sent to over 50 institutions, including the University of Illinois.
Descendants of Big Bucky may be found all over North America including Canada and Puerto Rico. Fayyaz cultivated the first titan arum plant to bloom in Wisconsin.
Another UW-Madison corpse flower - "Titan II" - bloomed on June 15, 2011 in the Botany Greenhouse in Birge Hall.
The titan arum is notorious for the smell of its flower, which smells like rotten meat. The flower's foul odor attracts pollinators like carrion beetles and flesh flies.
The plant is native to the rain forests of Sumatra, Indonesia. Titan arum plants are difficult to cultivate, and less than 100 have flowered in the United States since 1937, when the first American corpse flower bloomed in the New York Botanical Gardens.
- More information on the Illini's Titania may be found here.
- Watch Titania's blooming at the University of Illinois.
- Titan II's blooming was captured here on the UW-Madison Botany Department's Facebook Page.