Zoo's giant, smelly flower keeps everyone waiting...

Paignton Zoo Environmental Park’s giant titan arum flower is continuing to tease gardeners and visitors.

The flower is green, speckled with cream on the outside and bright red inside. It has ribbed sides and a frilled edge, and is now an extraordinary 254cm or 8 foot 5 inches tall.

The titan arum produces one of the largest blooms on the planet which gives off the smell of rotting meat to attract insect pollinators.

Botanic gardens have achieved this feat, but Paignton would be the first zoological garden to get one to flower.

The plant - from the rainforests of Sumatra – has one of the largest flowers in the world. Due to its odour of rotting meat the titan arum is known as a carrion flower, and has been dubbed corpse flower or corpse plant. A member of the lily family, it is classed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. Public flowerings are rare.