Hundreds visit Melbourne garden centre to smell corpse flower

Hundreds of people have gathered in Melbourne to smell one of the stinkiest plants in the world.

Two months after a corpse flower bloomed in Geelong, a second has sprouted in the suburb of Braeside in a usually once-in-a-decade event.

The giant leaves started to peel away from the stem at midday at Collectors Corner Garden World, where staff first noticed the changes in the flower on December 12.

Groups crowded around the 1.8m tall flower yesterday, which is expected to be in full bloom today.

“It smells like if you’re at a back alley and you went past an open garbage can full of rotting fish,” one visitor said.

“It’s like a stench but it also smells like a cabbage,” another visitor said.

Staff are familiar with the process after another titan arum flowered in 2016.

“It brought in a lot of people,” Collectors Corner Garden World owner Jeno Kapitany said.

“When it opened in the evening it brought hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of flies to pollinate.”

Trading hours at the garden centre have been extended while the plant is in full bloom for those who dare to witness the distinct scent of rotting flesh in the flesh.