After days of anticipation the Auckland Domain Winter Garden's 'corpse flower' began to bloom today.

The flower, officially named Amorphophallus titanium but more commonly called the "corpse flower" because of its smell in bloom, began to open this afternoon, revealing a dark and velvety purple colour inside.

Auckland Domain manager David Millward of city park services said: "It's been a bit quiet over the past few days but this morning it was starting to smell and there is some movement in the spathe, which looks like it is starting to open."

The flower started showing signs of activity about two weeks ago.

Since last week, hundreds of people have been following its progress on social media in anticipation of it flowering again.

The flower last bloomed in December 2013 and 17,400 people came to smell it.