RAFFLESIA ARNOLDII

                 
Photo of Rafflesia Arnoldii
               Rafflesia Arnoldii is a member of the genus rafflesia. It is named after it's founder which is Sir Thomas Raffles(Rafflesia) and Joseph Arnold(Arnoldii). The flower has a very strong odour of decaying flesh. It is endemic to the rainforests of Sumatra and probably Borneo. Rafflesia Arnoldii is one of the three national flowers in Indonesia. It is a national "rare flower" as stated in Presindential Decree No.4 in 1933. 

            The flower of Rafflesia Arnoldii grow to a diameter of around one meter, but the greatest measured from reliable source is 105 meter. Rafflesia Arnoldii could weight up into 11 kg. These flowers emerge from very large, cabbage-like, maroon or magenta buds typically about 30 cm (12 in) wide, but the largest (and the largest flower bud ever recorded) found at Mount Sago, Sumatra in May 1956 was 43cm (17 in) in diameter.

             Rafflesia is a rare flower an fairly hard to locate. It is hard to locate because the buds take a lot of time to develop but the flower only last a few days. the flower are unisexsual and thus proximity of male and female flowers is vital for successful pollination. These factors make successful pollination a rare event. 

          When it is ready to reproduce, a tiny bud forms outside the root or stem of its host and develops over a period of a year. The cabbage-like head that develops eventually opens to reveal the flower. The stigma or stamen are attached to a spiked disk inside the flower. A foul smell of rotting meat attracts flies and beetles to pollinate. To pollinate successfully, the flies and/or beetles must visit both the male and female plants, in that order. The fruit produced are round lots filled with smooth flesh including many thousands of hard-coated seeds that are eaten and spread by treeshrews. Elephants also affect the pollination of this flower and this type of pollination is known as Elephophily.

               This flower is critically endangered. There are many threats for this flower. One of the threat is the areas where Rafflesia arnoldii grows have become popular tourist attractions. While such tourism has helped locals to conserve the species, the increased human activity has disturbed and reduced flower bud production at many locations.
                        

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A HOLIDAY WITH MY FAMILY

Image
            24 th of December 2016, my family and i went to my grandparent’s house in Jakarta. We started our trip to Jakarta at 9 AM in the morning. We arrived in my grandparent’s house at 2 PM. When we arrived on my grandparents house, my grandparents had prepared lunch for us so we ate the food and talked a bit about our experience in Bandung this year. My grandparents rarely visited Bandung so we had to tell what happened in Bandung for them. It was 24 th of December which was Christmas Eve, so at 8 PM we went to the nearest Catholic Church to attend Christmas Eve Eucharist. The Eucharist took about 3 hours it finished at 11 PM. We usually attend Christmas Eve Eucharist on the Christmas Eve to celebrate Christmas.             After the Eucharist we went home and arrived at 12 PM. It was late night so my parents told me to sleep. On 25 th of December 2016, my extended family gathered in my grandparents house to celebrate Christmas together. A lot of my kinsfolk came and tal
Read more

Being Grateful

Sometimes people is hard to be grateful, most of the people only focus on theirselves. Through this mindset, we always think that there is always something unfulfilled. We always think that all the things that we have is still not enough. This mindset also bring a lot of people to chase their ego. I am feeling grateful this week, because of my support from my family when preparing for some test this week. They help me to prepare it mentally.
Read more

CROSSWORD PUZZLE, CAN YOU SOLVE IT ?

Image
click the picture to enlarge it Across :   1a.   Stuff to create paintings such as canvas, brush, and …….. 2a.   The word we use when we want to conclude something 3a.   During elections to choose certain candidate we need to ………..  4a.   The word that define the sentence to make a different in some particular 5a.   Little running is also called as ……….. 6a.   When you finish a lot of work you usually feel ………. 7a.   The opposite of bad 8a.   The opposite of short  9a.   The creature that live in the sea  10a. Title of the popular song released by a group band called “Magic” 11a. When the object you want to capture with camera is to far away you need to .... in  12a. The opposite of unaware  13a. This is one of the component on the date that changes anually 14a. We need to exercise more so our body can stay ……….. 15a. This is one of the winter sport that uses poles, and skis  16a. The opposite of contaminated 17a. The activity that include decr
Read more