Master Gardener Renee Bolom, right, talks with Margaret Davids about a mysterious flower that appeared in her garden. The plant's purply spikey flower is visible among calla lily blooms. World Photo Lou Sennick View the slide show online at http://www.theworldlink.com/multi_slide/plant_sleuth.

COOS BAY - It was a Monday like any other. The sun sidled up past thin fog into the indigo sky over Coos Bay.

At 10:30 a.m., plant sleuth Renée Blom stepped out of a vehicle at the cottage on South 12th Court. The Master Gardener was on the case of the stinking plant.

“I think that it possibly could be an arum or a dracunculus,” Blom said.

Armed with a satchel of books, she stepped up to the front door and met hobby gardener Margaret Davids.

Davids launched into her tale, saying she found the plant last year. Actually, it was the nose-wrinkling odor she noticed.

“The first year, my daughter looked all over and said I must have a sewer leak. ... As we came closer, the smell got worse,” she recalled, describing how she discovered the mystery plant nestled next to her calla lilies.

“As I leaned down to smell, it almost killed me,” she said.

Davids' daughter chopped it down. But this year, there are more plants. And the flowers attract flies, big chunky ones that take up residence on that side of the house. The insects apparently help with pollination.

“It is a horrible smell, just like really rotting garbage, or rotting fish,” she said.

The plant's odor is the fly attracter, Blom said, but it doesn't stay in the air long. She bent down to examine the leaves, then pulled out a book.

Mystery solved.

Blom identified the plant as a dracunculas, Dracunculus vulgaris to be exact.

“The colors are beautiful. First, I thought it was black, but it's kind of an eggplant color,” Davids said.

Its leaves are green, but the bulb, from which it grows, sends up a long, purply spike or spadix. That's surrounded by a wavy, maroon leaf called a spathe. Some people call them dragon or voodoo lilies.

“They're not carnivorous,” Blom said of the plant.

The plant sleuth is familiar with them, having had one appear in her Allegany garden years ago. She thought it may have made it into her soil with other bulbs she purchased. That prompted Davids to wonder if it came in with day lilies along her home's south wall.

And they spread. Davids' one flower became several this year. While the blooms are short-lived, Davids finds them beautiful. She has every intention of keeping them in her garden - with one caveat.

“Well, I don't open my bedroom windows when these are in bloom,” Davids said.