Sydney’s botanic gardens haven’t had a bloom of the corpse flower, which only lasts about 24 hours, in 15 years.

A rare plant known as the corpse flower bloomed in Sydney on Friday for the first time in more than a decade, emitting an odour likened to rotting flesh and delighting thousands who queued for a whiff.

Police in Australia launched an investigation on Friday after a statue of British naval officer James Cook was found vandalized in Sydney. The hand and nose of the statue of Cook, who charted Sydney’s coast in 1770,

Australia Day is known to some Indigenous Australians as Invasion Day, symbolising a key moment in the destruction of their cultures by European settlers.

It comes nearly 24 hours after vandals targeted the busts of former Australian prime ministers in Ballarat, along with defacing a prominent statue of Captain Cook in Sydney's eastern suburbs.