BANGOR – Walk through the doors of the Maine Discovery Museum this week and the smell hits you in slow, powerful waves.

Like a pile of garbage left to rot in the sun for a few weeks. Like low tide at the docks. Dirty diapers. Brussels sprouts.

“A little girl came through the door earlier and asked ‘Why does it smell like skunk in here?'” said MDM volunteer services manager Laurie Claverie, who bravely sat at the front desk all day, inhaling the putrid aroma.

The smell emanates from a three-and-a-half foot tall plant sitting in a pot in the back of the lobby. It looks like a rotten banana wrapped in some strange species of reddish-purple cabbage or a creature from a 1950s sci-fi b-movie.

It’s Amorphophallus konjac, aka the corpse flower, the voodoo lily or the devil’s tongue, and it bloomed for the first time in three years on Wednesday. It is expected to remain in bloom for up to a week and will remain “fragrant” for at least two more days.

It’s also the pride and joy of the museum’s natural history educator, Tony Sohns.

And man, does it stink.

“The smell comes in waves,” said Sohns. “This plant has the metabolism of a hummingbird because it takes so much oxygen for it to build the flower. You put your hand down in it and you can feel the heat it’s generating.”

Sohns’ pet plant is one of several species of corpse flowers. This particular species is native to China and Vietnam, can grow to about four feet, and blooms every three-to-five years.

The better known giant species, the titan arum, is native to Indonesia and can grow up to 10 feet tall. It blooms only every 10-to-12 years and is much harder to obtain. There are less than 20 specimens in the United States currently.

“I’m on the waiting list for the big one. It’s not that hard to get [the smaller ones] anymore, but no one really wants one. I’ve had this one since the eighth grade. I got it from a mail order catalog,” said Sohns, 29. “I know Surry Gardens has one, but this is the first in Bangor that I know of – unless there’s another weirdo in town with one.”

One of the many unique things about the corpse flower is that its noxious, decay-like scent – hence the name ‘corpse flower’ – attracts carrion insects, such as dung beetles and flies. In a nifty evolutionary adaptation, the insects climb down into the flower, get covered in pollen and then move onto the next flower, thus allowing the plant to reproduce.

As if the odor in the lobby wasn’t enough, visitors to the museum Wednesday took turns sticking their snouts into the flower for a better whiff of the unusual fragrance.

“It smells like tide pools,” said Sarah Hopkins, 18, of Bangor, who was visiting with her friend Derek Carolak, 23.

“It smells like when I brought home a shell from the beach and didn’t realize there was still an organism inside it,” said Carolak. “Something nasty, sitting in there biodegrading.”

Sophia Mullins, age 31/2 and visiting with her mom, Ashley, had a more blunt description.

“It smells like stinky feet,” she said.

One little boy whispered to his dad, with some apparent measure of grossed out glee, that it smelled “like mommy’s toots.”

This is the fourth time Sohns’ corpse flower has bloomed since he first started growing it 16 years ago.

“The second time it bloomed I was living with my mother,” said Sohns, who transplants the flower to a shady spot in his garden during the summer. “It bloomed in my mom’s bathroom and she said, ‘Get it out!’ The last time it bloomed was when I had roommates, and they all said that it reeked of dead animals in our apartment.”

“To me, it smells like dead mice or rats,” said Andrea Stark, director of the Maine Discovery Museum. “It’s just so unusual. Families have come to the museum today just to see it and take pictures with it. And what’s really great is that it also teaches people about plants.”

“What I hope is that this will encourage kids to learn more about plants,” said Sohns. “Maybe one of the kids that will see it today will get a book about plants and become interested.”

But suffice it to say, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see anyone bringing a corpse flower along on a date.

“I can’t think we’ll ever see a corpse flower corsage,” said Sohns, chuckling. “Maybe in a Tim Burton movie.”

The Maine Discovery Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. General admission is $6.50. For information, call 262-7200.

Fast facts:

The Amorphophallus konjac is a member of the aroid family of plants, which includes calla lilies, skunk cabbages and philodendrons.

While in bloom, the tip of the spadix reaches human body temperature, which adds to the intensity of the “fragrance.”

The heat, and the fact that the scent of the flower resembles rotting meat, helps attract carrion insects, such as beetles and flies, which help pollinate it.

The bloom can last for up to a week, and the aroma lingers for up to four days.

It can grow up to four feet tall with a leaf up to six feet wide. The leaf falls off as the flower gets ready to bloom.

The first corpse flower to bloom in cultivation was of the larger titan arum variety at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London in 1889.

The historic flowering of another titan arum at the New York Botanical Gardens in 1939 led to the designation of the corpse flower as the official flower of the Bronx. It was replaced by the calla lily in 2000.

In China, the root of some corpse flowers are used to make konjac, a slimy, jelly-like substance eaten like gelatin or gummy candy. It can also be used to make noodles. The root can weigh up to 20 pounds.