Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic
flowering plants. It contains about 28 species including 4 partly characterized
species as recognized by Willem Meijer in 1997. This flower has been found in
southeastern Asia, on the Philippines, Thailand, Malay Peninsula, and Borneo,
Sumatra. Indonesian guide Dr. Joseph Arnold actually discovered Rafflesia in
1818 in the rain forest of Indonesia. The flower was named after Sir Thomas
Stamford Raffles, the leader of the expedition. Although it was found even
earlier by Louis Deschamps in Java somewhere between 1791 and 1794, but his
notes and illustrations, seized by the British in 1803, were not available to
western science until 1861.
The dramatic Rafflesia flowers sometimes
considered the largest single flowers in the world; the leathery petals can reach
over 90 centimeters across. Rafflesia is a parasite that depends totally upon
its host; the mainstream of the plant’s tissues exist as thread-like strands completely
within the host’s cells. These host plants are vines of Tetrastigma spp., and
the Rafflesia plant is itself not visible till the reproduction stage, when the
flowers first bud through the woody vine and then open into the brilliant
spectacle that is world-renowned today.
The flowers can take up to 10
months to mature from the first visible bud to the open bloom, which may last
no more than a few days. Presently 17 species of Rafflesia are recognized and
these primarily differ in the morphology of their flowers. In general the
flowers contains of five leathery petals that are orange in colors and mottled
with cream-colored warts. There’s a deep well in the center of the flower
containing a central raised disc raised that support numerous vertical spines.
The sexual organs are set beneath the rim of the disk, and male and female
flowers are separate. But a few have bisexual flowers. Little is known about
seed dispersal.
However, tree shrews and other
forest mammals eat the fruits and disperse the seeds. Rafflesia is the official
state flower of Indonesia, the Sabah state in Malaysia, and of the Surat Thani
Province, Thailand. The flowers appearance and smell like rotten body, henceforth
its local names which translate to “corpse flower” or ‘meat flower’. The foul
odor entices insects such as flies, which transport pollen from male to female
flowers.
The name “corpse flower” applied
to Rafflesia can be confusing because this common name also refers to the titan
arum (Amorphophallus titanum) of the family Araceae. Moreover, Amorphophallus
has the world’s largest un-branched inflorescence; it is sporadically credited
as having the world’s largest flower. Both Rafflesia and Amorphophallus are
flowering plants, but they’re only distantly related. Rafflesia ‘Arnoldii’ has
the largest ‘single’ flower of any flowering plant, at least in terms of
weight. A. titanum has the largest ‘unbranched’ inflorescence, while the ‘talipot’
palm forms the largest ‘branched’ inflorescence, containing countless of
flowers; the ‘talipot’ is monocarpic, meaning the individual plants die after
flowering.
Due to insufficient quantity and the
short-lived lifespan, much about these plants remains covered in mystery.
Unluckily, one of the few natural sanctuaries of the plant, the Malaysian
rainforest, is at its darkest hour, with hundreds of square kilometers being
wiped out every year. Therefore; excessive habitat loss is the main concern
regarding the future of these magnificent flowers, as well as many other flora
and fauna with which they share habitat. There is, though, a reason for hope as
botanists in Borneo have recently achieved what it was believed to be
impossible: they artificially grew a Rafflesia flower on a host plant. Given
the fact that its bud blooms into a flower at midnight during the rainy season
and that the flower itself only lasts for a limited days, you’ve to plan your
exploration trip carefully while also relying on luck.
