RAFFLESIA- A PLANT THAT EATS INSECTS

HELLO FRIENDS, Heard about rafflesia.....

RAFFLESIA-INSECTIVOROUS PLANT

A plant with no leaves, no roots, no stem and the biggest flower in the world sounds like the stuff of comic books or science fiction.

'It is perhaps the largest and most magnificent flower in the world' was how Sir Stamford Raffles described his discovery in 1818 of Rafflesia arnoldii, modestly named after himself and his companion, surgeon-naturalist Dr James Arnold.

This jungle parasite of south-east Asia holds the all-time record-breaking bloom of 106.7 centimetres (3 ft 6 in) diameter and 11 kilograms (24 lb) weight, with petal-like lobes an inch thick.

It is one of the rarest plants in the world and on the verge of extinction.

As if size and rarity weren't enough, Rafflesia is also one of the world's most distasteful plants, designed to imitate rotting meat or dung.

The flower is basically a pot, flanked by five lurid red-brick and spotted cream 'petals,' advertising a warm welcome to carrion flies hungry for detritus. Yet the plant is now hanging on to a precarious existence in a few pockets of Sumatra, Borneo, Thailand and the Philippines, struggling to survive against marauding humans and its own infernal biology.

Everything seems stacked against Rafflesia. First, its seeds are difficult to germinate. Then it has gambled its life entirely on parasitising just one sort of vine. This is a dangerously cavalier approach to life, because without the vine it's dead.

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