How skunk cabbages and other smelly plants brew their foul odour

Ledford, Heidi

3 min read Original article ↗
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A small tweak to a common enzyme gives plants the ability to make smelly sulfurous molecules.

By

  1. Heidi Ledford

With a nickname like ‘skunk cabbage’, the infamously stinky flowers of Symplocarpus renifolius are unlikely to grace a bridal bouquet. But for the beetles and flies that pollinate the plant, the noxious perfume of rotting meat is an irresistible draw.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01413-4

References

  1. Okuyama, Y. et al. Science 388, 656–661 (2025).

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