Rafflesia is a unique parasite. Rafflesia How can rafflesia be pollinated?
Rafflesia- this is the smallest representative among the flowers of giants, such as and. But still, the dimensions of the flower are impressive: weight up to 7 kg and up to 100 cm in diameter.
Flower corpse lily(as the plant is called in its homeland - on the Indonesian island of Sumatra) looks very impressive: a huge inflorescence of a red-burning color, with equally large fleshy petals with white convex inclusions. However, it is better to admire this beauty from a distance, since Rafflesia emits the smell of decomposing meat, i.e. fell. No matter how strange it may sound, this terrible aroma “plays into the hands” of the giant flower - dung flies and some other insects flock to it. They pollinate the corpse lily.
Rafflesia is a rare plant; they can only be found on the islands of the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos (the islands of Sumatra, Java, Malacca, Kalimantan and the Philippines). The largest and at the same time the most famous variety of rafflesia is Arnoldi, slightly less common are rafflesia Patma And Thuan Mude.
Rafflesia blooms for only 3-4 days, and if during this time it does not have time to pollinate, the entire plant will die. And if the flies do come to the “sweet” aroma, then Rafflesia forms an unusual hard fruit with hundreds of thousands of small seeds inside.
Further reproduction is even more interesting. The rafflesia fruit is very hard and does not open on its own, so in order for the seeds to spread throughout the forest, the flower requires the help of some large animal, for example an elephant. It sounds a little incomprehensible, but in fact everything is simple - large animals crush the fruits of rafflesia and spread the seeds of the miracle flower on their paws or hooves.
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.
Both the appearance and smell of rafflesia attract 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 the hard wood of the host plant.
Indonesians have traditionally used rafflesia in 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.
An amazing plant grows on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan - Arnold's rafflesia (Rafflesia arnoldii). Rafflesia got its name in honor of the British governor of the island of Java, Raffles Stamford, and the English doctor and naturalist Joseph Arnold, who worked on his expedition - he was the first to discover a strange flower in the rain forests of Sumatra. This happened in 1818.
Europeans also call it corpse lily, and in Sumatra it is called “bunga patma”, which means “lotus flower”. However, rafflesia does not even remotely resemble either a lily or a lotus.
The diameter of rafflesia flowers is 60-100 cm (the maximum recorded size is 106.7 cm), and the weight reaches 8-10 kg! The rafflesia flower consists of five fleshy petals covered with light, warty spots. Each petal is about 3 cm thick and about 46 cm long. It’s like pieces of meat! The smell of a record-breaking flower matches it appearance, and here we get to the explanation of why it got the name corpse lily: the fact is that it smells like... rotten meat!
The fact is that the pollinators of rafflesia are not butterflies or bees, but dung flies. The smell of rotting meat attracts them. The appearance of the flower probably also plays an important role: on a poisonous red background there are light, irregularly located spots of irregular shape.
About a year and a half after the seed lands on the vine, a thickening similar to a bud appears under its bark. Having reached the size of a child’s fist, the “bud” opens, revealing brick-red petals rolled into a bud to the world. The bud matures from nine months to one and a half years, but blooms only for a few days.
A rafflesia bud looks like a rotten head of cabbage
Rafflesia flowers are bisexual. If the female flower is lucky and gets pollen, it will form an ovary. Over the course of seven months, it develops into a berry-shaped fruit filled with thousands of seeds. And faded rafflesia begins to quickly decompose, gradually turning into a shapeless black mass.
Rafflesia seeds are spread by animals, to whose limbs the contents of crushed fruits stick, as well as by insects.
Due to the fact that the area of tropical forests is now rapidly declining due to massive cuttings for plantations, all types of rafflesia are under threat of complete destruction.
Strictly speaking, Arnold's rafflesia is the widest flower on Earth. Its competitor for the title of the largest flower in the world is Amorphophallus titanica - the owner of the tallest inflorescence. However, in terms of the width of the inflorescence it can also compete with Rafflesia. .
This amazing plant, originally from Southeast Asia, has several other names that the locals gave it - “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. 
The inhabitants of the island used infusions from the flower in medicinal purposes- for recovery female body after childbirth and to improve male power.
The width of the largest stone lotus is almost 107 cm. There is no larger flower 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, about 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 is difficult 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.
Flowers most often come in both sexes; there are also polygamous ones, when in addition to same-sex ones there are also male ones. They do not use photosynthesis; rafflesia does not even have the usual leaves.
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, it has suckers on the roots that absorb all the nutrients without killing the host.
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.
After pollination of a blossoming flower, fruits appear on it, which ripen up to 7 months. They look like berries and have seeds inside them. Rafflesia reproduces with the help of insects, as well as large animals that trample the fruits and spread these seeds throughout the jungle.
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 deforestation of tropical forests is reducing 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 do not smell much, they only stink in hot weather and when they have already faded, they bend.
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 were crawling 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 nasty 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? =)
The principle of development and reproduction of rafflesia is interesting - a tiny grain is brought to the vine by ants, where, having fallen into a tiny crevice, it sends its roots into the wood of the vine. The roots of rafflesia are similar to mycelium, so the future giant grows firmly into the trunk, preparing for future “prosperity”. It literally penetrates all the tissues of the host with its thread-roots, sucking all the juices out of it. This process is long: first a bud is formed, then a bud, and the blossoming flower can only be contemplated after 7 months.
Beauty is a terrible force, but it’s not really about beauty; the smell that blooming rafflesia has is terribly unpleasant. In its homeland, the plant is called the corpse lily (on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia), the flower looks amazing, but the smell of decaying meat can spoil the impression a little. But it is simply necessary to attract insects.
The plant blooms for 5-7 days; if rafflesia is not pollinated during this period, it dies, leaving behind something dark and smelly. But, as a rule, flies like the “attractive” aroma and they flock to it with pleasure. The trouble is that the flower that grows on the vine is unisexual: male or female. If the flies do not find a mate for it in the area, then all the efforts of the plant will be lost - both it and its owner will die.
But if a miracle happens, after pollination the flower turns into an unprecedented fruit that stores a large number of seeds. And then, in the process of reproduction, elephants or other large animals play a large role. Elephants, while walking, crush the fruits (they are very hard) and carry the seeds of the miracle flower for many kilometers, where the ants already take over the baton.
A huge number of tourists are attracted by the blooming rafflesia; these tours are prepared in advance. Since local residents claim that the plant has not only unique beauty, but also healing qualities, there are only more people wanting to see this rare flower. They say that a decoction of this flower has a beneficial effect on sexual function, and the prepared extract from the buds of this amazing plant helps to quickly normalize a woman’s figure after childbirth. But this fact has not yet been verified - the flower is among the rare and endangered species, and each discovered specimen is protected by biologists and ecologists, hoping to obtain seeds from it and learn how to propagate it under artificial conditions.