Thousands queue to see rare plant which emits stink of death when it blooms

Karen and Wayne McKay photograph themselves with an endangered plant known as the ‘corpse flower’ for its putrid stink, at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, Australia (Rick Rycroft/AP)

The rare unfurling of an endangered plant that emits the smell of decaying flesh has drawn hundreds of devoted fans to a greenhouse in Sydney where they lined up to experience a momentous bloom – and a fragrance evoking gym socks and rotting rubbish.

Tall, pointed and smelly, the corpse flower is scientifically known as amorphophallus titanum – or bunga bangkai in Indonesia, where the plants are found in the Sumatran rainforest.