Titan Arum

The titan arum produces the world's largest unbranched inflorescence - a flower structure up to 10 feet tall that smells like rotting flesh. The plant waits 7-10 years between blooming events, storing energy in an underground corm that can weigh 200 pounds. When it finally blooms, the event lasts only 24-48 hours before the flower collapses. The smell attracts carrion beetles and flies that normally visit dead animals, tricking them into pollination.

This is extreme event-based reproduction. The plant doesn't maintain continuous presence in the mating market. It accumulates resources in obscurity, then creates an unmissable signal that draws pollinators from miles around. The rotting smell can be detected from half a mile away. For 48 hours, every potential pollinator in the area knows exactly where to go.

The titan arum's notoriety creates additional advantage. When specimens bloom in botanical gardens, thousands of visitors come to witness the event, generating media coverage and awareness. The plant's extreme strategy has made it famous in ways that continuous bloomers never achieve. Scarcity and spectacle combine to create disproportionate attention.

The business parallel is event-based marketing versus continuous presence. Some companies achieve more visibility through spectacular, infrequent events than through constant marketing. Product launches that become cultural moments, PR stunts that generate earned media, events that create pilgrimage - these parallel the titan arum's strategy of rare, unmissable signals.