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.

Most of the time, people don’t make a pilgrimage to see (and smell) something that smells like rotting meat. But this case is different.

A rare and revolting spectacle has drawn tens of thousands to Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, where a foul-smelling flower has finally bloomed.