Rafflesia sizes. Rafflesia flower

Let's continue our acquaintance with the plants of the Earth. One of the most unusual plants grows on the islands of Indonesia - Rafflesia.

Rafflesia Arnolda is best known for its large flowers. This flower received its name from two scientists - naturalists Thomas Raffles and Joseph Arnold, who put a lot of effort into researching and studying the island of Sumatra. D. Arnold was the first to find and describe this greatest miracle of the plant world.

The rafflesia flower is unusual and very original, bright red with white growths, which makes it look like rotting meat. It blooms for only three to four days and emits the “aroma” of rotting meat throughout the area. The petals of the flower are very thick, almost three centimeters, and the diameter of the flower can reach from half a meter to one meter.

AND appearance, and the smell of rafflesia attracts a large number of insects For this reason, rafflesia was nicknamed the corpse lily.

After flowering, rafflesia decomposes and turns into a shapeless black mass. This black mass contains tiny rafflesia seeds, invisible to the naked eye. One fruit contains from two to four million seeds.

This viscous mass sticks to the feet of elephants, wild boars and other large animals, and is also spread by small animals, insects, such as ants. Spreading in this way, rafflesia seeds fall on the roots of a new donor plant in a new place and the development of a new rafflesia flower begins again.

Rafflesia seeds are so small that it is still a mystery how they penetrate hard wood host plant.

Indonesians have traditionally used rafflesia for medicinal purposes. Rafflesia flower extract was used to restore a woman’s figure after childbirth, and the flowers themselves were used to enhance male sexual function.

This amazing plant, originally from Southeast Asia, has several other names that have been given to it. local residents, - “carrion flower”, “dead lotus”, “stone lotus”, “corpse lily”.

Rafflesia was discovered in 1818, when one of the flowers grew to 90 cm in diameter and 6 kg - these dimensions already impressed the expedition team. A dead lotus was discovered while exploring the island of Sumatra. The strange plant was noticed by the leader of the group, Thomas Raffles, who is also the founder of Singapore. A plant family was named in his honor. But the first flower discovered was named after one of the expedition members, Joseph Arnold - Rafflesia Arnoldi.

Residents of the island used infusions from the flower for medicinal purposes - to restore the female body after childbirth and to improve male strength.

Width itself big representative stone lotus - almost 107 cm. More large flower not on the planet.

Description

Now Rafflesia can be found in the jungle not only on the island where it was discovered, but also on the islands of Kalimantan, Java, Malacca, as well as in southeast Asia.

Did you know? The smallest flower on the planet, the size of a pinhead, grows in tropical forests and is called wolfia.

When opened, the bud lives only up to 4 days, and after flowering it begins to decompose. It’s hard not to recognize it: a large round bowl-shaped depression is surrounded by 5 fleshy petals. Inside the recess there is a collection of stamens and carpels.

From the base, which is called the disk, the depression expands upward. The disk is covered with spines. The plant smells like rotten meat. This attracts insects such as flies for pollination.

There are about 30 species of rafflesia - each of them has its own characteristics. The smallest, Rafflesia patma, has flowers up to 30 cm, and in Tuan Mude they are already about 1 m. The color of the flowers is bright red and brown with spots on the background.

Features of the plant

Rafflesia grows and lives at the expense of the so-called host. Most often these are vines or tree roots that have fallen to the surface of the earth.

Important! Not every tree is suitable for the life of a carrion lily; a prerequisite is that the juices of these plants must awaken the lily seed.

Rafflesia chooses its place of residence very carefully, since it will feed only thanks to the second plant. To do this, she has suction cups on the roots that absorb everything nutrients, while the owner does not die.

After landing on the desired plant, thin shoots emerge from the seeds, which are located under the bark of the feeding plant. How the small seeds penetrate the plant itself is still a mystery.

Life of a flower

For almost a year and a half, the seed inside the host does not make itself felt - with the help of suction cups on its roots, it feeds on all the necessary substances. After the seed ripens, a bud appears at the injection site - a kind of growth on the bark. Sometimes it takes up to 3 years from sowing to the appearance of a growth. This is the future flower bud, which matures from 9 months to 1.5 years.

Important! Out of 2–4 million seeds, only a few take root. And those that could not get into the desired plant die off over time.

Now the exotic plant is in danger of extinction: constant felling tropical forests reduce the number of places for Rafflesia to live.

We learned that you can find rafflesia in the jungle by the following characteristic: when it blooms, you just need to be guided by the smell of spoiled meat. But since the flowering period does not last very long, only the lucky ones can be lucky enough to meet this strange lily.

What Rafflesia really is - watch the video

They don't smell much, just... hot weather they stink and when they have already faded, they die.

Tanav

http://forum.awd.ru/viewtopic.php?p=6112376&sid=0311b4af5ddc2bf0ffea3d5269d7f502#p6112376

We were crawling with this rafflesia in 2009 =))) Yes, I confirm, I personally saw it on Khao Sok. Yeah, and we were there (since we were “all-eating” backpackers), crawling on our own, without any guidance. And even in the off-season. It was cool. After. Recall. We found her, poor thing. the remains of last year and a bud the size of my head. We crawled there in August, but you should look at rafflesia in February. But land leeches have plenty of freedom in August. Vile creatures. I say this as a biologist by training, who seems to be supposed to love all kinds of animal disgusting things, but somehow things didn’t work out with leeches. No. It just worked out with me, after all. It's a fun activity to pick them out from your... experience... Something like this =)))

But this mushroom is nothing unique for us Russians. Its relative, called Phallus impudicus (note the name of the genus), lives in the forests of our vastness, and is popularly called VESELKA. Not without reason either. =) look at Wikipedia http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%81 Trora, why did hitchhiking offend you so much? ??? Just curious =) It didn’t work out the same way as I did with leeches? =)

It’s not easy to find plants in the jungle that have the world’s largest flower: they grow singly, bloom in different time years and bloom no more four days. But those who are lucky enough to see Arnold's rafflesia in all its glory are rarely disappointed: the bright red spot among the dark green jungle looks too strange, unusual and unusual.

People who find this flower are unlikely to be able to enjoy the aroma of this amazing plant, since the opened bud has a very unpleasant odor. In turn, forest flies really like this aroma; they flock to it like bees to honey and, getting stuck in the inflorescence, contribute to the pollination of the flower.

These amazing plants are notable primarily for the fact that the flowers of some species, for example, Arnold's rafflesia, weigh from eight to ten kilograms and have a record size in diameter - about a meter, being the widest flower on earth. True, not all types of this flower have similar sizes. There is another type of plant, the flowers of which are also classified as large - Patma with an inflorescence diameter of 30 cm. But the sizes of such representatives of the Rafflesiaceae family as Sapria and Rhizantes range from 10 to 20 cm.

The family itself was named after Thomas Stamford Raffles, the leader of the expedition to the island of Sumatra, who also became famous for founding Singapore. But the first plant found was Arnold's rafflesia - it got its name thanks to Joseph Arnold, who participated in the same expedition.

Interestingly, local residents called this plant “lotus flower”, “corpse lily”, “carrion flower”, “dead lotus” and used it as medicine: women drank an extract made from the buds to restore their figure after childbirth, and men used rafflesia flowers to enhance potency.

The plant discovered by Joseph Arnold was small for its species, but even then it was impressive: its diameter was about ninety centimeters, and it weighed no more than six kilograms. Subsequently, botanists found larger specimens. The maximum flower diameter that was recorded by scientists was 106.7 cm - and this moment it is the widest discovered flower on our planet.

Biological characteristics of the plant

Grow the most big flower in the world it prefers on vines of the cissus genus or on trees, part of the root system of which has protruded to the surface. Once on these plants, rafflesia seeds release thin threads and penetrate under the bark of the “host” without harming it in any way.

Life of rafflesia

After rafflesia seeds are introduced into the vine with the help of sucker roots, they do not manifest themselves in any way for a year and a half (seeds that were unable to penetrate the tree bark die over time).

After eighteen months, a bud-like thickening begins to form on the roots or stem of the “host”. When the growth reaches the size of a child's fist, it opens and a bud with brick-red petals appears. Usually, Rafflesia Arnoldi spends at least three years on this process.

It takes nine to eighteen months for a bud to mature and transform into a flower. A blooming rafflesia Arnold flower has five petals about 3 cm thick and 45 cm long.

These petals are usually red or brown and covered a huge amount white warty growths and spots. Despite the long ripening, the flower itself lives no more than four days, after which it begins to decompose, and Arnold's rafflesia soon transforms into a black, shapeless mass.

Once in bloom, rafflesia emits the smell of rotten meat, attracting flies, which it uses for pollination. Insects, finding themselves on a flower disk covered with small flexible spines, become entangled in them.

Trying to get out, they fall lower and find themselves in a ring furrow, and from there the finest hairs guide them to the stamens. They, in turn, pour sticky pollen onto the fly, after which the insects, trying to take off, end up in the flowers, thereby fertilizing the ovules (these plants are mostly bisexual).

The fruits of Rafflesia Arnold are berry-shaped and consist of a viscous mass, pulp, in the middle of which there are from 2 to 4 million small seeds. It takes about seven months for the fruit to ripen, and mature seeds search for a suitable “host” quite often. in an interesting way: after an animal steps on and crushes a ripe fruit, seeds instantly stick to its limbs, which thereby begin the “search” for a suitable plant. However, not everyone is lucky.

According to unofficial sources, Rafflesia was first discovered in 1797 on the island of Java by the French explorer Louis Auguste Deschamps. However, in 1798, when his ship was captured by the British, all notes and illustrations fell into the hands of the invaders and were not available to Western science until 1954.

The official date of discovery of this representative of the world of flora is 1818. Then it was found in the tropical forests of Indonesia in the southwest of the island of Sumatra during an expedition led by the British explorer, Sir Stamford Raffles, in whose honor the flower got its name. The first to see the unusual plant was a local guide, assistant to doctor and naturalist Joseph Arnold. The specimen found was a huge flower without leaves or stem, reaching a meter in diameter and weighing more than 6 kg. Later this type received the name Rafflesia Arnolda. Today it is the most famous representative of the genus and is one of the three largest flowers on the planet.

Rafflesia Arnolda - giant plant, blooming with single flowers, which can have 60-100 cm in diameter and weigh more than 8-10 kg. The record holder of this species reached a very impressive size - 106.7 cm. And even the smallest variety, Rafflesia baletei, has an average diameter of 12 cm.

The only visible part of the plant is five fleshy, pancake-shaped petals of deep red color, covered with chaotically distributed white spots. A giant bud blooms right on the ground, emitting the smell of spoiled meat, which is how it got another name - “corpse flower.” The unpleasant smell and appearance attract pollinating insects, which are most often forest flies that transport pollen from a male to a female flower. Most species of rafflesia are bisexual, but some of them are polygamous plants that can be either bisexual or unisexual.

In the case of fertilization of the female flower and the appearance of the ovary, after 7 months the fruit ripens, containing on average from 2 to 4 million seeds. Next, the fate of rafflesia is decided with the participation of large animals (elephants, wild pigs), which crush the hard fruit and transfer the seeds stuck to the limbs to other places.

Today, all species of this plant are under threat of extinction, the reason for this is the massive deforestation of tropical forests for plantations, which is rapidly reducing the habitat of exotic representatives of the flora world.

In Indonesia, Surat Thani Province, Thailand, and Sabah, Malaysia, Rafflesia is officially designated as the national flower.

The miracle flower was first discovered and described by the German botanist Joseph Arnoldi in 1818 during his trip to Sumatra together with an English explorer, statesman and founder Thomas Raferlez. He called this strange find " the greatest miracle of the plant world".

The harmful atmosphere of the swampy jungle undermined Arnoldi's health. Two weeks after opening the flower, he died of tropical malaria. Thomas Raferlez returned to Europe, and in his large collection it was a miracle.

It was in honor of the two travelers that scientists gave the name to the largest flower on Earth Rafflesia Arnoldi.

It is worth noting that this tropical flower is Lately began to attract the attention of cosmetic companies. Complex ones are extracted from it essential oils with miraculous properties. Added in small quantities to creams and rubs, these oils help quickly cleanse the skin of acne and allergic rashes, making it smooth, elastic, and without fine wrinkles.