A foul-smelling flower that became an overnight internet sensation is coming to the end of its rare and fleeting bloom as superfans queue to catch one final sniff.
The corpse flower - nicknamed "Putricia" - began unfurling at Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden for the first time in 15 years on Thursday afternoon.
The rare titan arum, a type of carrion flower, has the world's largest and stinkiest flower spike and blooms for only 24 hours.
Lines to see the flower on Thursday blew out to more than three hours as thousands queued to catch a whiff of the botanical sensation.
The queue was still two-and-a-half hours long when the gardens reopened on Friday and staff expect the lines to continue to blow out during the post-work rush hour with superfans given until midnight to catch a glimpse of the flower.
On Friday afternoon, the plant had begun wilting and its formerly 1.6m long spike had solemnly slumped over its splayed-out leaves.
The garden's own live stream, which has attracted more than 1.5 million viewers, and dedicated "Putricia stans" also took a sombre turn as the flower began to flop.
"Putricia is looking like how I feel on a Friday afternoon," one user wrote.
"We still love her! RIP queen," another commented.
"Looks like the average Aussie after ten pints," another person wrote.
The stream was adorned with hashtags including BBTB (Blessed Be The Bloom) and WWTF (We Watch The Flower).
The flower also has its own Spotify playlist, which includes tracks such as Seal's Kiss From a Rose, and a Facebook fan page.
The foul odour of carrion flowers - often imitating the smells of rotting flesh, garbage or vomit - is designed to attract bugs and pollinators.
Botanic Gardens director of horticulture John Siemon artificially pollinated the flower on Thursday evening by cutting out a square of the burgeoning leaves.
"I nearly got sent off to HR for touching Putricia, apparently inappropriately," Mr Siemon joked on ABC radio on Friday.
"But as she opened and the scent ramped up between about seven and 11pm, we had to cut a hole almost like a surgical procedure into the back of her leaf sheath or petal, and that gave us access to expose the male and female organs."
Mr Siemon and his colleagues pollinated the flower with a Queensland counterpart, hoping to continue to breed generations of the rare plant.
Putricia is one of several titan arums in the botanic gardens, while corpse flowers have bloomed in other Australian cities in recent years.
Thousands of people visited Adelaide Botanic Garden in 2023 to watch a 1.5m-tall specimen unfurl its leaves.
A similar event took place in Geelong in November, followed by a burgeoning corpse flower in Melbourne in early January.
Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden will close at midnight on Friday, marking the end of the corpse flower visitations.
