Baby corpse flower blooming at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden but fans urged to stay away

A baby corpse flower is blooming at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden but members of the public won’t be able to catch a glimpse of or sniff the stinky plant.

The smelly specimen will stay in its cosy and protected nursery so it can be cared for in optimum conditions.

The rare titan arum has the world’s largest and worst-smelling flower spike, which blooms for just 24 hours.

Some 27,000 people waited in line for more than three hours to have a look at a different corpse flower that bloomed at the gardens earlier in January, dubbed ‘Putricia’.

It was the first time a corpse flower bloomed at the gardens for 15 years and quickly became the biggest phenomenon in its history.

It also sparked an online following, with some 1.7 million people tuning into a live stream to look at the plant.

The younger plant, becoming known as Putricia’s sister, entered the flower stage on Saturday but enthusiasts won’t be able to see it so that it can stay in a protected environment.

Putricia had to be moved for public display so the plant was exposed to changes in air temperature, humidity and motion.

The team learnt a lot from the experience in January and the new flowering offers a chance to put those lessons into practice, a spokesperson for the garden said.

The garden’s director of horticulture and living collections John Siemon previously likened the crowds visiting Putricia to a tsunami wave, saying many of the plant’s enthusiasts who chat online eventually met up in real life to take photos with it.

The corpse flower is on the brink of extinction and found only in the rainforests of western Sumatra.

It earnt its name due to the smell of putrid, rotting flesh it exudes when it blooms, which is meant to lure in pollinators that feed on flesh like flies and beetles.

There are no other male plants nearby so workers from the Royal Botanic Gardens have hand-pollinated the plants.