Lynne Schwartz, age 11, of Nassau, New York, for her question:
Which is the world's largest flower?
Nowadays, lots of us are learning what fun it is to cooperate with Nature. When we grow flowers and vegetables the natural, organic way we lend a small hand to Nature's big hand. Almost always the results are astounding. Our tasty strawberries grow big as plums. Our roses look like colored cabbages. But they are not the Earth's largest flowers. The real champ is a strange wild flower, grown by Nature without our help.
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was an avid naturalist who collected unusual plants growing wild in unexpected places. In a tropical rain forest, he came upon this enormous blossom, squatting on the ground. When botanists verified his discovery, they names it rafflesia in his honor. This was only fair, for rafflesia turned out to be the largest blossom that blooms in any land on the Earth.
Several other species of the family Rafflesiaceae have since been found in the steamy jungles of the Middle and Far East in Java and Sumatra, in Borneo and Malaya. All of them blossom from parasite plants that depend entirely on a host plant. Though their flowers differ somewhat, all the rafflesia species are parasites of the same jungle vine, a trailing liana called tetrastigma.
The largest rafflesia spreads its five enormous petals in a flat circle three feet wide. The center is a bowl big enough to hold a couple of gallons of water. Usually the whole flower is a vivid scarlet, freckled with white dots. Sometimes the color is tinged with purple or murky brown, and the bowl may have a whitish rim. Always it squats on a ground level stem of a trailing tetrastigma vine.
The giant blossom has no leaves or stem to call its own. Its plant is a wad of fungus like threads, growing deep inside the tissues of the host on which it feeds. It blooms suddenly, when the parasite plant is about nine months old. Many naturalists have searched the jungles in vain to find it. A few lucky ones have been in the right spot in time to see the bud burst forth, looking like a big brownish cabbage.
The whopping flower soon opens to its full size. It gives off a strong putrid odor that has been compared to the smell of rotting meat. Naturally we find this repulsive, but flies and other insects rate it as a fine perfume. They come from afar, swarm around and crawl all over the petals and bowl. The giant rafflesia flower lasts for about five days, then it rots and mingles with the jungle compost.
Most of those who have seen it have seen only one. For a while, naturalists thought only one flower occurs at some unexpected time. Later, another and another blossom have been seen several yards away, plus one or two of the cabbage sized buds waiting to open.
The world's largest flower produces very large seeds. But at present no one is sure how they are dispersed to suitable new sites. The tetrastigma vine is rather uncommon. Rafflesia is a parasite that devours, weakens and perhaps finally kills its host. Most likely the seeds must find a healthy new host, but nobody knows how they do it.