Houston, July 25 (IANS) This is one flower you may not like to receive in a bouquet. The world's largest and smelliest flower, which grows up to 10 feet, has bloomed here, attracting hundreds of curious onlookers.

Almost six feet tall, the flower - Lois the corpse - may not even bloom once in a lifetime of 40 years, said the Houston Museum of Nature Science, the owner of the plant.

It gives off a smell like decomposed animals to attract insects.

Nicknamed after a staffer's mother, it has been in the museum for six years and is special because it's totally unpredictable, Nancy Greig, director of the museum's butterfly centre, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

'No one knows what triggers a corpse flower to bloom and no one knows when it will bloom in its about forty years of lifetime,' she said.

Corpse flowers, an endangered species in the world, are native to Indonesia's Sumatra.