The Titan Arum, giant of the plant world, is preparing to envelop visitors in its rotten stench as it flowers for the first time ever at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

Two weeks ago Glasshouse staff at the Botanic Garden noticed a mottled green shoot pushing through the soil of a gigantic pot they have been nurturing in the Palm House for over 20 years. This specimen of a Titan Arum, or Amorphophallus titanum, had been dormant since December 2003 - would this new shoot be a leaf, or an elusive flower bud gearing up to deliver one of the most extraordinary flowering performances on the planet?

There is no doubt now that a flower is emerging. Over the next week, the spadix will grow up to 2 metres and a blood-red, fluted and frilly-edged spathe will unfurl around it, shaped like an upturned bell.

At its base, the spathe forms a chamber enclosing thousands of actual flowers, the female flowers clustered in a pale green band with the male flowers forming a cream band above. When the female flowers are ready for pollination, the spadix heats up and emits an atrocious stench, so bad that the Indonesians call the plant 'the corpse flower'. The powerful smell produced by such a huge structure attracts its pollinators, thought to be carrion beetles and sweat bees, from vast distances.

Professor John Parker, Director of the Garden, said:

"It's very difficult to predict exactly when the flower will open, but the growth is very rapid at over 10cm each day so we expect it to be in the next week. We are very excited to be flowering our first Titan Arum - to the best of our knowledge, only the Royal Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh and Kew have managed it before in this country. "

Rob Brett, Glasshouse Supervisor, also enthuses:

"We were thrilled and surprised to discover a flower bud as our Titan is just a baby - the corm weighed a mere 33lbs at the last re-potting. But although we don't know quite how big the flower structure will be, it will certainly be a spectacular, if short-lived, sight. The flower lives for around 2-3 days and is perfect only for a few hours when the revolting smell pulses from the plant. That's why we're making plans to open late when it's in full flower so people can enjoy, if that's the right word, this exciting phenomenon."

The Titan Arum is becoming increasingly rare in its native Sumatra due to deforestation and illegal trading of the corms. Botanic Garden Glasshouse staff are very keen therefore to try and get viable seed from this flowering event in order to produce new plants. Rob will need to resort to a sort of horticultural IVF treatment to have any chance of fruits developing and is trying to source frozen pollen from the international botanic garden community.

This is necessary because by the time the male flowers in the spathe chamber produce pollen, the female flowers are no longer receptive. In the wild, this ensures cross-pollination by a different plant, but in captivity, it makes the job a logistical challenge.

The Cambridge University Botanic Garden website is covering the countdown to flowering with daily updates and photographs of the plant's rapid growth skywards.

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