Breaking its own record of 107 centimeters, a flower of a variety of Rafflesia measuring 111 centimeters in diameter has become the largest on record in the world .
The flower belongs to the tuan-mudae variety, and was born in the Maninjau nature conservation area, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Tuan-mudae
In addition to being the sixth largest island in the world and the largest island in Indonesia , Sumatra has a wide variety of plant and animal species, but has lost almost 50% of its rainforest in the last 35 years and has many endangered species. critical of extinction, such as the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran rhinoceros and the Sumatran orangutan.
However, it is still capable of giving us surprises, such as this flower of Rafflesia tuan-mudae , a genus of phanerogamic parasitic plants, which contains 15 species (19 if four unverified species are counted), which inhabit Southeast Asia (in the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, Philippines).
The specimen was first discovered by the West Sumatra BKSDA after collaborative research with Agus Susatya , a Rafflesia expert at the University of Bengkulu, in late 2017.
Rafflesia plants have no leaves and hardly any stem ; They consist mainly of a five-petal flower with a diameter greater than one meter and a weight greater than 10 kilos approximately. The flowers smell like rotting meat (chemical mimicry) and often attract flies, which pollination without receiving any reward.