Because sometimes you just don't know what's under the earth until it breaks out and stinks the place up. The flowers occur with sharp teeth in the video games of Super Mario, but aren’t carnivorous. Bizarre, parasitic plant from South Africa which only appears above ground with its flowers.

Hydnora africana It's Hydnora africana! At first glace, this appears to be a picture of a green succulent, Euphorbia caput-medusae, viewed from above the plant--and it is.But next to the gray stone near the bottom of the photo is a brown flower. Jackal Food (Hydnora africana) 0 Reviews | Add review. Hydnora africana is an achlorophyllous plant in the family Hydnoraceae, native to southern Africa that is parasitic on the roots of members of the Euphorbiaceae family. The plant grows underground, except for a fleshy flower that emerges above ground and emits an odor of feces to attract its natural pollinators, dung beetles, and carrion beetles. A kind of "living dead" plant. It belongs to a root parasite, Hydnora africana, which lives on the Euphorbia.Hydnora, from Africa, belongs to a family, Hydnoraceae that also includes a New World genus, Prosopanche.

... H. africana is a good host, providing some juicy snacks for the beetles to eat during their stay.