Rare 'corpse flower' blooms in Australia

Thousands of people have lined up to get a glimpse of a rare flower that smells like rotting flesh and is almost two metres tall in South Australia, the media reported on Tuesday.

South Australia's Mount Lofty Botanic Garden has been growing the Amorphophallus Titanium, more commonly called the Corpse Flower, for 10 years.

It began opening on Monday in the garden's glasshouse, ABC reported.

The garden's Matt Coulter said the plant, which is native to Indonesia's Sumatra region, had been grown from a seed planted about 10 years ago.

Coulter said the flower, which is about a metre wide, smelt like a "dead animal".

He said the flower had grown in the past month and its largest growth spurt was measured at 18 centimetres in one day.

The corpse flower cannot self-pollinate and its stench attracts sweat bees and carrion beetles that live on animal carcasses.

In the wild, these creatures will carry the plant's pollen to other corpse flowers.

The flower will last for just 48 hours before it collapses in on itself.