Rafflesia

How The Name "Rafflesia" Started

Rafflesia comes after the name of an adventurer and founder of the British colony of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles. After a jungle expedition in Sumatra(Indonesia) in 1821-22, Raffles and Dr.Joseph Arnold, a young accompanying assistant surgeon in the Navy with a passion for natural history. At the time Sir Stamford was the Governor of Sumatra and while riding on horseback,crossing jungle clad mountainous Sumatra, both of them came across (discovered) this fabulous flower.

A born naturalist Raffles immediately took note of the flower which came to be name Rafflesia arnoldii (after the 2 explorers)

There are about 20 described species of Rafflesia, some only discovered as recently as 1988. They are found on peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand, on Borneo Island. In the restricted areas of the Philipines and in Sumatra

Description and Characteristics

Lets get the facts out of it (Scientific Name: Rafflesia ssp)

The world's largest flower weighing about 9 kg and almost 1 meter wide

Totally dependent on one particular vine called Tetrastigma (related to the grapevine)

The Rafflesia is a disembodied flower. A rootless, leftless and stemless parasite, it drains nourishment and gains physical support from its host vine. Its only body outside the flower consists of strands of fungus-like tissue that grow inside the Tetrastigma vine. It first manifests itself as atiny bud on the vine's stem. Most buds rot before they attain maturity, but when they finally open nine or more months, they display five huge, fleshy petals that can reach in extreme cases almost one meter in diameter and weigh over seven kilogrammes

Over a period of 12 months, it swells to a cabbage like head that bursts around midnight under the cover of a rainy night to reveal this startling, lurid-red flower. Beauty turns beastly in only a few days. The Rafflesia only flowers for 5 to 6 days, before the petals blacken and the flower withers. The "flowering Beast" begins to smell like a rotting meat, attracting blue bottle flies for pollination

Habitat

Where they can be found

The Rafflesia is generally found at altitudes between 500 and 700 meters in the forests of Borneo, Sumatra and Java, Peninsular Malaysia and Philipines. In this tropical rainforests the climate is continuously warm, generally between 24-27 C with humidity frequently reaching 100% at night.

In Sabah (North Borneo) a Rafflesia Conservation Area has been set aside near Tambunan. It is an area where there is an unusully high concentration of Rafflesias and one is almost guaranteed to see Rafflesia in bloom.

Rafflesia In Sabah (North Borneo)

Commons and Rare Species

There are 3 type of Rafflesia that can be found in Sabah:

1. Rafflesia keithii Meijer

2. Rafflesia pricei Meijer

3. Rafflesia tengku-adlinii (rarest species)

Link Information to Rafflesia

Rafflesia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. It was discovered in the Indonesian rain forest by an Indonesian guide working for Dr. Joseph Arnold in ...
Rafflesia arnoldii in bloom. Photographed in West Sumatra, Indonesia.: Several species of Rafflesia grow in the jungles of Southeast Asia, all of them threatened or endangered. Rafflesia arnoldii is the largest; its blossom ...
Rafflesia: a penetrating smell more repulsive than any buffalo carcass in an advanced stage of decomposition" (Mjoberg, 1928) There are approximately 17 Rafflesia ...
Genus Rafflesia: Rafflesia is a genus of flowering plants that is made up of of 16 known species. The best known of these species is Rafflesia arnoldii, which has the ...
Rafflesia - Rafflesia spp - ARKive: ARKive - Images of life on Earth. A new digital library of photographs, film clips and accompanying information about endangered species, ...
Stinking Flowers: The authors estimate that for Rafflesia there was a 79-fold increase in flower ... Like Rafflesia, male and female flowers appear from buds that break ...
All Malaysia.info: Everyone's dream should include seeing the Rafflesia - the largest flower in the ... At the entrance of this reserve is a Rafflesia Information Centre. ...
rafflesia: Borneo is the center of diversity for the Rafflesia. In Sarawak it is found in the Gunung Gading National Park in Lundu. Visitors can call National Park ...
Resource Library - Rafflesia: Searching for a Rainforest Spectacle ...: The Rafflesia is one of Malaysia's most well known icons of the tropical forest, join REZA AZMI as he explains its conservation and attraction for tourists ...
What is the largest flower in the world? (Everyday Mysteries: Fun ...: The flower with the world's largest bloom is the Rafflesia arnoldii. ... Rafflesia arnoldii in bloom - This site contains the photography of Karl Lehmann of ...
Rafflesia Research & Monitoring Team: You may want to read about my Sabah Rafflesia Tour 2007 in the Rafflesia-in-Bloom. Here is detail contact information in case you want to contact them. ...
Tambunan Rafflesia Centre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Tambunan Rafflesia Centre is one of the popular viewing spots of the Rafflesia flower in Sabah. It is located an hour's drive from Kota Kinabalu city. ...
Rafflesia Arnoldii: The largest flower in the world comes from a leafless plant from Mayla. It'sa parasitic plant that has grapevine like roots and a fleshy flower which is the ...

Threats

Most species are highly localised and are therefore vulnerable to extinction because of habitat disturbance and host cutting from activities such as land clearing,logging, and ethnobotanical collecting. The first two activites are important in threatening the Borneon species while in Peninsular Malaysia over collecting by local people who sell the buds for medicine is apparently the greatest threat.

Conservation

Because of its rarity, knowledge of the biology and ecology of Rafflesia has been slow to accumulate. Even today, little is known about its reproductive biology and distribution, which in itself poses many problems for its conservation.

(Three species are believed to be already extinct)

As Rafflesia is found in only a handful of localities, its long term survival is now seriously threatened by the the depletion of the Malaysian rainforest.

Recently successess from Sabah have indicated that Rafflesia can be artificially grown on host plant.

Several Areas where the Rafflesia spp. are protected includes Kinabalu Park and Crocker Range Park in Sabah and Gunung Gading National Park in Sarawak.
To a certain degree, it maybe protected within the National Park.

Different Species of Rafflesia

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Anthophyta
Subphylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Rafflesiales

Family: Rafflesiaceae
Genus: Rafflesia
Species include: arnoldii, priceii, keithii, tengku-adlinii,cantleyi, gadutensis, hasseltii, kerrii, pricei, rochussenii,tuan-mudae, manillana, patma, micropylora

R.rochussenii

R.tengku adlinii

R.cantleyi

R.arnoldii

R.keithii

R.pricei

R.kerrii

R.hasseltii

R.manillana

R.tuan-mudae

R.micropylora

Reproduction

The visible part of the Rafflesia's life cycle happens only when it is ready to reproduce. A tiny bud forms on the outside of the vine's roots or stem, which develops over a period of about a year to a cabbage-like head that eventually opens to Reveal the flower. Inside the flower is a spiked disk, to which either stigma or stamens are attached, depending on the sex of the plant. The odor of the plant attracts flies and beetles into the plant to pollinate it. Pollination in Rafflesia is thought to be a rare occurrence due to several factors. Firstly, the flowers are unisex and for the most part are found only in proximity to same sex plants. In order to have successful reproduction, the insect pollinators have to visit both male and female plants, which not only are frequently not in close proximity to each other, but are also not necessarily mature and open at the same time. To complicate matters is the fact that the flowers last less than a week, leaving a narrow window of opportunity for pollination.
The fruit produced by Rafflesia is round and about 15cm in diameter, filled with smooth flesh and thousands of tiny hard coated seeds. The flesh attracts squirrels and tree shrews which are thought to be the main distributors of the seeds.

Click here for Rafflesia in different stages

Largest Flower (Combo Picture)

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Beautiful Rafflesia

My first rafflesia

My first sight of a rafflesia in bloom

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My First Crush

This was my final film at Kingston University, it is an animated film based on interviews with people about their first crushes. (best version). I can be found at www.myspace.com/angrypony_ and at www.juliapott.com. Animated By Julia Pott, Music and Sound Design by Christopher Frost (for all those who wanted to know who did the music!!)

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Not everyone's perfume

We expect flowers to smell lovely, or at the worst to have no scent at all. There is one flower, however, which really stinks. Rafflesia lives in the jungles of Sumatra, Borneo and part of Philipine and is the largest flower in the world - it's a metre wide. This huge flower spreads its leathery, wart-covered petals just above the surface of the forest floor. In the centre is a vast, spike-filled cup from which comes the putrid stench of rotting, dead flesh. So what could possibly be persuaded to approach this monstrous flower? Flies that feed on decomposing bodies swarm to it, expecting a feast, and happily transfer pollen as they come and go.

Rafflesia At Wikipedia

Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. It was discovered in the Indonesian rain forest by an Indonesian guide working for Dr. Joseph Arnold in 1818, and named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the leader of the expedition. It contains approximately 26 species (including four incompletely characterized species as recognized by Meijer 1997), all found in southeastern Asia, on the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra and Kalimantan, West Malaysia, and the Philippines. The plant has no stems, leaves or true roots. It is an endoparasite of vines in the genus Tetrastigma (Vitaceae), spreading its root-like haustoria inside the tissue of the vine. The only part of the plant that can be seen outside the host vine is the five-petaled flower. In some species, such as Rafflesia arnoldii, the flower may be over 100 cm in diameter, and weigh up to 10 kg. Even the smallest species, R. manillana, has 20 cm diameter flowers. The flowers look and smell like rotting meat, hence its local names which translate to "corpse flower" or "meat flower" (but see below). The vile smell that the flower gives off attracts insects such as carrion flies, which transport pollen from male to female flowers. Little is known about seed dispersal, however, tree shrews and other forest mammals apparently eat the fruits and disperse the seeds. Rafflesia is an official state flower of Sabah in Malaysia, as well as for the Surat Thani Province, Thailand.

The name "corpse flower" applied to Rafflesia is confusing because this common name also refers to the Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) of the family Araceae. Moreover, because Amorphophallus has the world's largest unbranched inflorescence, it is sometimes mistakenly credited as having the world's largest flower. Both Rafflesia and Amorphophallus are flowering plants, but they are still distantly related. Rafflesia arnoldii has the largest single flower of any flowering plant, at least when one judges this by weight. Amorphophallus titanum has the largest unbranched inflorescence, while the Talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera) forms the largest branched inflorescence, containing thousands of flowers; this plant is monocarpic, meaning that individuals die after flowering.

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