I'm in West Sumatra, Indonesia. For the last week I've been searching for the giant Rafflesia blooms of the jungle. I've been sending out guides and quarters in all directions to see if they can find any buds developing.
Unfortunately, all of them have come back. back without any results. But just last night, a local contact said there's one Rafflesia in bloom.
And it's not any old Rafflesia, it's Rafflesia annaldii, the biggest of all the Rafflesia, the largest of the genus, and the biggest flower on Earth. And it's in bloom just over here. And here it is!
Wow! Look at the size of this flower! You can see it consists of five petals that are bright orange and warty.
This is meant to resemble carrion. And inside it's got hairs like a dead corpse of some animal. And this immense size and the smell. It smells a little bit like rotten fish.
That smell, the colour, this attracts carrion flies and other pollinators. But the bloom itself lasts for only about six to seven days, then it dies and rots. It's a parasite. It has no leaves.
It consists of a fibre of tissues inside a vine called the Tetrastechma vine. And once in a while it blooms. There may well be other buds in development in this forest So let's go look for them You can see it! Wow! And this, this is the developing Rafflesia bud.
This one is perhaps six months old, so it's got another three to six months to go before it gets to full size, ready to open. This is the Tetrastigma vine, the host plant that it parasitises. Here it is going all the way up there. It's absolutely incredible to think that this small vine can produce enough energy to support the biggest flower in the world.