Visitors flock to New York botanic garden for a whiff of a flower that smells like a rotting corpse

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Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s rare Amorphophallus gigas, native to Sumatra, bloomed for the first time since 2018 on January 24, attracting visitors eager to experience its towering height and infamous carrion stench. (AP Video: John Minchillo)

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Visitors take photos of the the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s rare Amorphophallus gigas, a relative of the “corpse flower,” that has bloomed for the first time since arriving in 2018, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s rare Amorphophallus gigas, a relative of the “corpse flower,” has bloomed for the first time since arriving in 2018, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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Visitors take photos of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s rare Amorphophallus gigas, a relative of the “corpse flower,” that has bloomed for the first time since arriving in 2018, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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Visitors wait take photos of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s rare Amorphophallus gigas, a relative of the “corpse flower,” that has bloomed for the first time since arriving in 2018, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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By JOHN MINCHILLO

NEW YORK (AP) — One by one, visitors to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden pulled out their phones snap pictures of the rare blooming plant before leaning in to brave a whiff of its infamously putrid scent, which resembles that of rotting flesh.

“It smells like feet, cheese and rotten meat. It just smelled like the worst possible combination of smells,” Elijah Blades said. “That was disgusting.”

The rare Amorphophallus gigas — a relative of the Amorphophallus titanum, commonly known as the corpse flower — has bloomed for the first time since arriving in Brooklyn in 2018. Native to Sumatra, the plant is known for its height and carrion scent, which it uses to attract pollinators.

It has hundreds of flowers, both male and female, inside the bloom, and it can take years between blooming events, said gardener Chris Sprindis, who first noticed the inflorescence, or cluster of flowers, around New Year’s Eve. The bloom will last only a few days before it collapses.

“So this is the first time it’s happened here,” Sprindis said. “It’s not going to happen next year. It’s going to be several years before it happens again.”

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The plant is in very few other botanical gardens worldwide, but there was a similar scene this week on the other side of the globe at a greenhouse in Sydney as thousands waited in three-hour lines to experience the fragrance emanating from a blooming Amorphophallus titanum, evoking gym socks and rotting garbage.

It was the first time in 15 years that a corpse flower has bloomed at the Royal Sydney Botanic Garden. That plant’s flower was also spotted in December, when it was 10 inches (25 centimeters) high, and by Thursday it was more than 5 feet (1.6 meters) tall.