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.

A rare plant known as the corpse flower bloomed in Sydney on Friday for the first time in more than a decade, emitting an odour likened to rotting flesh and delighting thousands who queued for a whiff.

The bloom has attracted up to 20,000 admirers who filed past, hoping to experience the smell for themselves, with some attendees describing it as "like death," "like poop," and "like sewage water."