Get your clothes pegs ready because Cairns Botanic Garden’s latest addition to its pongy plant family is about to be on the nose.

The titan arum, named ‘Mister Troy’, is 13 years old and small by the species’ standards, standing at about one metre tall.

A spokeswoman for the Botanic Gardens told Tropic Now it’s difficult to determine exactly when it will be in full funk but it will possibly open later this week. 

‘There are signs that they’ll open but they can be really sudden and it can happen overnight.

“Then, they only stay open for a day or so,” she said.

The flowers are famous not only because of their impressive size, but their odour, which is often likened to rotting flesh.

It’s why they’re commonly referred to as a corpse flowers.

The proper botanical name, though, is amorphophallus titanium, which could give rise (so to speak) to an altogether different pseudonym….but Tropic Now will leave that one for you to figure out.

The Cairns Botanic Gardens is home to three titan arums.

The most famous is ‘Spud,’ which in 2016, smashed the record for the tallest flower of its kind in Australia at 282 centimetres tall.

‘Mister Troy’ has flowered twice previously at his previous home in a private collection but this is the first time he’ll be bringing his reeking stench to Cairns.