(CNN) -- The United Kingdom has royal baby watch. Zoo Atlanta had panda baby watch. Now Washington has stinky flower watch.
The enormous plant known as the corpse flower is expected to bloom and stink up the grounds at the United States Botanic Garden Conservatory sometime this week.
It will be the first flowering of this titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), also known as the stinky plant, which has lived at the garden since 2007. The plant doesn't have an annual blooming cycle; it can wait years or even decades between cycles.
It's expected to heat up, start smelling like dead animals and bloom overnight or in the early morning hours -- though exactly which night it will happen is not known. The heat and smell is to attract pollinator insects such as dung beetles in its natural habitat, said Ari Novy, the garden's public programs manager. The garden doesn't have any such beetles but resident flies could come calling, he said