Thursday 28 October 2010

Obligatory autumn visit to Kew Gardens

  
It wouldn't be the school holidays without a trip to Kew Gardens.  The children and I spent the day there yesterday with my parents.

We saw (and smelled) this extraordinarily phallic titan arum in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.  This plant rarely flowers, but when it does it releases a most revolting smell - like vomit and something rotting all mixed together.  It smelled so bad that the children actually ran outside in horror rather than exclaiming 'cool!', which I thought they  might.


You can read more about this threatened species, and see an amazing time-lapse of it flowering on the titan arum page of the Kew website here.

After all that excitement we headed outside for some sweet-smelling air and autumn colour.  I took some obligatory photos of my new winter boots amongst the fallen leaves.


Someone else has been taking the same shot - except she has gorgeous green boots, and more leaves have fallen since she was there!

We wandered around all day, chatting, eating flapjacks, admiring the trees and taking dozens of photos.  Perfect.

2 comments:

  1. Based on your description of the smell, I'm really glad Tracy and I missed the titan arum!

    K x

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think I would have run a mile had I smelt that flower too! Ewww!

    Those pesky green boots gave me wet feet so kind od spoiled themselves! Must remember not to walk in the long grass in them!

    I've loved Kew this Autumn.

    ReplyDelete

Even though I often do not have the time to reply to everybody, I really appreciate all your comments so much - thank you for taking the time to read my blog and share your thoughts on what I've written.