The biggest flower in the world has the diameter nearly one meter and can weigh up to 11 kilograms. This plant is called Arnoldi's raffleziya and grows in tropic and equatorial latitudes.
Real monster of flora
It is possible to find a surprising flower of a raffleziya of Arnoldi in the jungle of Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra and Philippines. He has a blood-red shade and very clearly reminds nothing but … a piece of rotten meat.
At the same time not only the look but also a disgusting smell Arnoldi's raffleziya reminds of the decaying corpse, it smells of nothing else as the decaying flesh and rotten eggs. However in the nature everything is thought carefully over, and such surprising plant is created by it at all not to strike mankind, and all these strange features of a raffleziya are completely justified. The reason of a strange look and a disgusting smell is simple – thus the plant attracts insects to pollination, the most part of flies.
Other features of a huge flower
Raffleziya Arnoldi, being the biggest flower in the world, in essence is a unique plant because consists just only of one flower. It has no root, a stalk and leaves. How if the raffleziya does not have all these bodies, does it eat? Photosynthesis process, typical for plants, – formations in leaves of nutrients at the expense of light and water is in that case impossible. The fact is that this giant of flora – the ordinary parasite, is also not capable to lead an independent life. The raffleziya receives all nutrients from plants owners – usually it is lianas. On the last the record-holder flower also grows. Interesting fact: ancestors of a modern huge plant were in absolutely tiny flowers, however in the course of evolution became such here a unique look. Two scientists-botanists – Stemford Rafflz and Joseph Arnold opened Arnoldi's raffleziya at once. They for the first time scientifically described this surprising representative of the kingdom of plants and named her. It is easy to guess that in honor of them and "the cadaveric flower" was called by pioneers as still sometimes call a raffleziya. Residents of those countries, where the raffleziya grows, call it in the language "bunga of a patm" that means literally "a lotus flower". The flower has five huge petals and not less large core in which, as well as all usual flowers, have a pestle and stamens. After pollination Arnoldi's raffleziya from a huge flower turns gradually into a fruit which contains several million seeds.