Amorphophallus

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A genus of large tropical plants whose giant flower produces a strong odor that attracts pollinating insects
2. A tropical tuber-bearing plant of the arum family known for its enormous, malodorous inflorescence
3. Any member of a genus of tropical herbaceous plants bearing a huge spathe and spadix that gives off a rotting smell

Etymology: Greek "amorphos" meant "shapeless" or "misformed," and "phallos" meant "phallus." Botanists combined them to name a genus of tropical plants, native mostly to Asia and Africa, whose giant underground corms send up a single enormous leaf and sometimes a tall flower-spike. The name is Latin scientific coinage built from those Greek parts, not a term that ancient writers used. The "phallos" element was a common botanical descriptor for a spike-shaped flower structure, so the name points to the plant's flower rather than to any anatomical joke. The "amorphos" part is less obviously explained, and the source does not settle which feature it describes. The genus is best known in English through the titan arum, whose foul odour attracts pollinating insects.