Behold, the first blog-evidence of my ever-growing plant addiction. This is the flower of a stapelia. Likely a stapelia variegata (arguably an orbea variegata, but let's not go there), to be specific. Too bad for you there's no smell-o-vision/smell-o-blogger, because it has the spectacular aroma of musty/moldy rotting meat. I can't remember if this was from late summer 2003 or 2004. If the former, it's extra-special, because that would be my very first stapelia flower all my own. Either way, it's still special, as I raised the plant from a tiny piece my mother gave me. Yes, I miss my mother, terribly. But anyone who knows me must be sick of me crying about her by now. Anywho, she gave me the piece in grad school, must've been 2000 or earlier, so it took a few years to raise the plant to flowering stage. I lost a bud first, as well.

Close-up of stapelia flower from late summer 2003 or 4