When people flocked to the Milwaukee Public Museum this week to get a whiff of the "corpse flower," they unanimously agreed that the flower emitted a putrid smell. However, few museum visitors could be certain the odor was actually like the smell of rotting flesh.

But Elaine Litzau knows for sure.

Litzau, a local funeral director, smells corpses on a regular basis. During a phone conversation, Litzau said it was "weird" how much the plant's odor actually smelled like that of a human corpse.

"I have experienced the smell of a deceased human body past its prime, and the 'corpse flower' does live up to its name," says Litzau.

When the museum's corpse flower keeled over this weekend, most of the staff thought it was a goner. However, the flower recovered early this week and emitted the gag-inducing odor that, interestingly, many Milwaukeeans were waiting for.

Corpse flowers bloom as infrequently as once every 15 years, and then only for a matter of days, even hours. The plant's giant tuber usually produces a leaf up to 20 feet tall and sends up a large flower that can reach heights of eight feet or more.

The museum got this corpse flower in August 2002, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.