Name: Suzanne/Sue Sebastopol, CA (Zone 9a) Sunset Zone 15
I took a series of photos back in 2011 of one at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, never got back to the full opening. https://garden.org/plants/brow...
Just missed a smaller one at California Carnivores nursery which is a mile away from me! Didn't hear about it until after the fact.
Yes the foliage dies before the flower appears. It emerges from the hole made by the deceased stem. Titanium needs to be quite large to bloom. The stems look like small trees on mature plants. Beautifully variegated I might add. A friend has two which bloom every other year. The tubers are over 200 lbs each. They bloom in opposite years from each other, so he gets to see one each year.
Amazingly, it not only gives off the odor of rotting flesh, it also emits waves of warmth and CO2 to further imitate decay. The night before I saw it, those effects were in full swing.. it wasn't actually all that stinky by the following afternoon, despite my face. LOL
Didn't hear about it until after the fact. 
