Most of the time, people don’t make a pilgrimage to see (and smell) something that smells like rotting meat. But this case is different.

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."

The Amorphophallus gigas, a cousin to the infamous "corpse flower," is beginning to bloom at the Aquatic House in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.