Smells like 'wet socks' and 'dead possums', corpse flower blooms for first time in 10 years

CANBERRA, Australia (KFOR) - There is something about the stench of corpse flowers that draws curious people far and wide when the giant blooms spew their putrid aroma for all to smell. Such was the case in Canberra, Australia, where a corpse flower bloomed for the first time since it was planted a decade earlier.

Visitors to the Australian National Botanic Gardens describe the frilly plant's rotting smell as rather unpleasant. "Visitors have been reporting scents like wet socks and dead possums," ANBG posted on social media.

The foul-smelling flower stands 4'4," with a width of 3'. Its smelly bloom is short-lived, with the flower opening for a mere 24 to 36 hours.

Amorphophallus titanum, as the plant is officially named, gets its putrid smell "from a cocktail of stinky sulfur-based compounds that attract the flies and carrion beetles that help propagate the plant," according to Dartmouth University.

The bloom officially closed February 11, but ANBG expects to see another ill-smelling bloom anywhere from two to ten years from now.