When most of the local Houston TV stations — all with varying degrees of unsourced certainty — started declaring that Houston's corpse flower "is blooming" in a rolling rush that went from channel to channel, beginning shortly after 10:20 p.m Wednesday night, the rare plant's devoted fans began rushing to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Within 20 minutes, the line to get into corpse flower Lois' inner sanctum stretched across the museum's long lobby. By 11 p.m., the wait stood at an hour and a half and it was still more than an hour as the clock approached 1 a.m.

Only one little, teensy problem ...

Lois still wasn't close to full bloom. In fact, the corpse flower's fearsome smell actually diminished from the afternoon, according to CultureMap's reporter on the scene Rachel Hanley, who was there the whole time. Lois' petals had loosened further, but they hadn't come close to starting to drop or even sag. HMNS officials weren't even ready to say that the four to six-hour final blooming process had begun. Instead even as the crowds swelled, much of HMNS' public relations staff — the people charged with getting the word out on a full bloom — went home.

The museum's horticulturist Zac Stayton was even told he could go home if he wanted. Stayton chose to stick it out, though he disappeared for more than an hour after the TV cameras started packing up, presumably to get a little rest. All the while, those crowds multiplied at a torrid rate, full of people expecting to see some wondrous difference in the corpse flower.

Stayton is sticking to what he told CultureMap Wednesday afternoon, that the corpse flower will fully bloom "within 24 hours." That means that Lois' petals should drop by around 1 p.m. Thursday, if Stayton is right.

In a way, the misleading reports and the rush to be first were more funny than anything. It fits in with the whole absurd, wonderfully wacky madness that surrounds the flower that's held the fourth-largest city in the United States both enthralled and in hostage.

Technically, the TV stations — and the Houston Chronicle, which quickly posted an "At long last, Lois finally opens up at the butterfly center" story on its website 20 minutes after the TV reports — weren't completely wrong. HMNS first tweeted that the corpse flower was "beginning (v. early stages) to bloom" on July 13.

Nine days later, it still hasn't dropped its petals or come anywhere close to full bloom. Not that anyone told the crowds.

Past midnight a line of around 100 people snaked down the hallway leading into the Cockrell Butterfly Center.

Amanda Rossler stood near the back of the line with her 10-year-old daughter Reagan and her friend, Peyton Keene, also 10. They drove in from Tomball to catch a whiff of Lois.

"We just want to smell it," Peyton said.

"We're curious about what rotting flesh smells like," said Reagan.

They were bound to be disappointed. At midnight, the flower was nowhere close to being fully open and the small room smelled of humid air and sweaty bodies, with no trace of a corpse.

Even so, Rossler thought it was "just cool" to be there. "We rushed down last week thinking it was going to open and now it's a week later . . . We figured we would come tonight and if it's not fully open, we'll come back tomorrow."

Abby Trace, a student at the University of North Texas, "was determined to see the flower no matter what. It really didn't matter what time."

She came with Jason Vanrooyen, a student at Texas Tech, and they waited arm in arm, in the long line.

"I just want to smell it," Vanrooyen said.

Maybe by the morning light. Maybe.