Crowds of people queued up at Australia's Royal Sydney Botanic Garden on January 23, with some people waiting as long as three hours. And for what? A very smelly flower. The titan arum, known as the "corpse flower," is a tall, pointed plant that releases an unpleasant smell when it blooms. The smell has been likened to things like decaying flesh, gym socks or rotting garbage. The endangered plant is only found in the Sumatran rainforests in Indonesia, where there are thought to be fewer than 300 of them. It only blooms every 7 to 10 years in its natural habitat. "The fact that they open very rarely, so they flower rarely, is obviously something that puts them at a little bit of a disadvantage in the wild," said Sophie Daniel from the Royal Sydney Botanic Garden. "When they open, they have to hope that another flower is open nearby, because they can't self-pollinate." The flower at the botanic garden is the first to bloom there in 15 years, and she's been named Putricia — a combination of "putrid" and "Patricia" — by her fans. Putricia's online fandom grew quickly and globally. A 24/7 live stream established by the botanic garden drew close to a million views in under a week, and people on social media planned to hurry to the garden as the plant opened. In just 24 hours, Putricia's bloom — and her stench — would be gone. As she opened, the plant heated to 37 degrees Celsius to better spread her scent. In the wild, the smell tricks pollinators into landing on what they think is rotten meat and spreading pollen between flowers. Up to 20,000 people filed past for a moment in her pungent presence, leaning in for a sniff or taking selfies. It was difficult to say why the flower attracted such a following — but perhaps the answer lay in the "reverence" viewers felt in the presence of "such an amazing living being," Daniel said.