Over 1,000 people visit McMaster to see and smell the corpse flower

With a short window of only about two days in bloom, over a thousand people visited McMaster University to catch a glimpse (and whiff) of the corpse flower.

The titan arum plant, dubbed the corpse flower, got its name by the pungent smell it gives off.

Han Kim, a volunteer at McMaster's biology greenhouse, says the smell is similar to rotten meat and is usually strongest when it initially blooms, which was Friday night for this flower.

Kim says it could be smelt from outside and a short distance away from the university's greenhouse on its main campus in Hamilton.

"It wants to attract its pollinators such as flesh flies and carrion beetles, which like the smell," said Kim.

By Sunday afternoon the smell was gone, which was a pleasant surprise for Ancaster resident Deborah Sheen, who just wanted to enjoy the look of the plant without having to plug her nose.

"I was hoping it wasn't smelly so I could actually just have a look at it," said Sheen.

According to the university, the plant had never fully bloomed before and was named after Art Yeas who worked as the greenhouse manager for 38 years before his passing in 2015.

The flower, originally from the shady forests in Sumatra, Indonesia, is popular for a number of reasons including its large size. It's the world's largest unbranched inflorescence, which is a combination of the base, skirt and towering spike of flowers.

This corpse flower measures up at a little over six feet tall.

It takes time to grow with seven to 10 years for an initial bloom and after about two days in full bloom, the skirt will begin to collapse.

McMaster sent out a tweet on July 3 letting people know that flower was about to bloom and were welcoming visitors to the greenhouse over the weekend while the corpse flower was still standing.

As of Sunday afternoon, over 1,400 people had stopped by McMaster to see and smell the flower — a number down from previous years say volunteers.

Some were from Hamilton and Burlington, while others from Toronto decided to head west on the QEW after seeing photos online.

Here's what the flower looked like after a few days in bloom, and what people thought of it.