Raise a toast but hold your nose. Waldo, the gigantic and smelly botanical wonder, is in bloom.

"From the symptoms, it's going to be tonight," said Doug Ewing, who cultivated the plant, considered to be the largest flower in the world.

Visitors can salute the plant, aka "the corpse flower," at the Volunteer Park Conservatory, 1400 E. Galer St. in Seattle, until 9 p.m. tonight - Wednesday - and then starting Thursday morning, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. For more information call 206-684-4743. CQ But don't wait if you want to see it; the flower's bloom collapses in just a few days.

The plant is an Amorphophallus titanum, which produces what's considered to be the largest flower in the world. Bloomings in cultivation are especially rare - and thus always draw a crowd.

Part of the fascination is a stench produced as the plant blooms. The smell has been described as similar to rotting flesh, which, in the wild, is believed to attract carrion beetles.

Waldo is likely to be at its smelliest at about midnight Wednesday, when it is expected to be fully opened. The stench then dies down hour by hour. and the bloom will collapse in just a few days.

It has taken 10 years for Waldo, raised at the University of Washington by greenhouse manager Doug Ewing, to reach this milestone. In order to best accommodate the public, the plant was loaned to the conservatory, where staff have been ready with gas masks just in case.

"We're in labor," said Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, the conservatory's senior gardener, when she called at 4:26 p.m. to announce Waldo's blooming.