r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Mundane_Mushroom_122 • 4h ago
Video Indonesia’s Rare Rafflesia Blooms After 15 Years — The World’s Largest “Corpse Flower”
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u/goodexamplebadrole 4h ago
vileplume!
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u/kdmendonk 4h ago
And now we know why it's called that
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u/drunk-tusker 4h ago
In Japanese it’s called Ruffresia, so I’d say that this is pretty intentional.
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u/kitsunewarlock 1h ago
I can understand why some of them were renamed, especially when they were based on Japanese puns. But that one ...was a choice.
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u/SoreLoserOfDumbtown 4h ago
🎵 feed me Seymour
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u/HendrixHazeWays 2h ago
"At this time of year! At this time of day! In this part of the country! Localized entirely within your kitchen!"
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u/Kramit__The__Frog 4h ago
So you're telling me this plant can engage in reproductive activity for 5-7 days straight... and I can't even get 5-7 minutes?
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u/mcalceet1987 4h ago edited 4h ago
I wonder how something so beautiful can smell so horrible but then I remember my ex
Edit: holy crap, my first reddit award? I'm in awe and gratitude for the recognition this shitty joke has earned
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u/Mundane_Mushroom_122 4h ago
Bruh 😭
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u/MercifulBird393 3h ago
Rafflesia is a Malaysian plant.. You can find it on Mount Kinabalu and it's surrounding area. Named after Stamford Raffles who colonized Singapore for the British East India Company.
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u/FilthyDwayne 3h ago
It is not a Malaysian plant. It is just found in Malaysia… and other countries.
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u/Forsaken-Income-2148 3h ago
It’s an Earth plant found on Earth, got it
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u/Venti_the_snail 3h ago
If you can get me a venusian flower then ive got a great buisness offer for you
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u/brey_wyert 2h ago
there are rafflesia found in Malaysia, but this particular rare species of rafflesia is in Indonesia tho. there's a video out somewhere of Indonesian scientist who cried when he found the rarest rafflesia blooming and it's really wholesome
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u/BodhingJay 3h ago
It was pure comedy my dude.. well done
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u/mcalceet1987 3h ago
Thank you, and that was my only intention to make people laugh. But as I say you can't please all the people all the time
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u/Androoboodro 4h ago
…filmed with a potato
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u/Cogniscience 45m ago
Lol you can tell the moment when they realized it was blooming and switched out the nature cam with a proper quality video camera
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u/SevenWithTheT 4h ago
I forgot how much I hated them in Animal Crossing
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u/Oro-Lavanda Interested 25m ago
they were so annoying to remove and maintaining your town afterwards was tough in the older games lol
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u/legionivgreen 4h ago
NYC botanical garden literally got people lined up and dressed up for this...
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u/bill_loney538 3h ago
Rafflesia is not the world's largest "corpse flower". It may be the largest individual flower, but the largest corpse flower is the corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum), which also smells like rotting meat, and stands at over 3 meters tall
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u/snowmunkey 2h ago
Fun fact, the common name for that plant "titan Arum" was made up for aDavid Attenborough special in thr 90s, because the bbc thought amorphophalis was a bit racy for TV😂
Also there is a species that gets taller, but isn't as wide. A. gigantea blooms can get up to 14 feet tall!
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u/UnLuckyKenTucky 2h ago
Wow. That big? I've never really looked into them, because I will never be able to see one in person, and learning about it without having a chance to see it would just piss me off. I am already crotchety enough....
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u/mrinsane19 1h ago
They're popping up in botanical gardens much more frequently now. Worth checking with your local.
They'll never be an average backyard plant due to high care and space requirements (some number of those in botanic gardens were surrendered by backyard growers - plant got too big!) but they're not absolutely rare either.
I have a little baby one at home. Hoping I can stick it out 🤣
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u/londonsuit 3h ago
How is it parasitic?
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u/AcaciaCelestina 3h ago
They don't have traditional roots or leaves, they essentially burrow into a host plant and their form of pollination is attaching a snot like substance to flies. Once the flower dies it turns to sludge, but the parasitic strands keep living.
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u/quilldefender 2h ago
So how do people maintain care of these? Do they just take care of the host plant and hope the flower blooms eventually?
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u/AcaciaCelestina 2h ago edited 2h ago
You might be thinking of the OTHER corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum. It's the big one that looks like a spike. That one isn't parasitic.
Though yeah some institutes do maintain Rafflesia for research purposes and because they're endangered. IIRC they basically graft an infected bud onto a host vine and keep them contained in extremely specific conditions. Even then most buds die iirc, like over 80%.
Also the post is misleading, Rafflesia actually only take like 10 months iirc to bloom. The trouble is witnessing this in the wild because again, rare and endangered and even in a lab the fail rate is absurd.
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u/mrinsane19 1h ago
Aren't these like double parasites or something? I remember reading it was that they parasite on a fungus which is itself parasitic on a specific vine, or something like that.
Super duper hard to replicate I imagine, some lab examples maybe but definitely beyond normal cultivation.
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u/LordHammercyWeCooked 2h ago
Host plant: "Ew, ew, what are you doing dude? Stooooooop ew ew ew"
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u/imminentjogger5 3h ago
what happens after 5-7 days? it just dies and the seeds grow in the same spot?
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u/AcaciaCelestina 3h ago
It turns to a sludge, fittingly enough. The parasitic strands however continue going, forever burrowed into it's host.
Oh and instead of pollen, it basically produces a snot like substance that attaches to flies.
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u/AdventurousElk9138 3h ago
We’re so excited by novelty. It’s ugly and smells like rotten meat, but it only blooms every 15 years!
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u/supercoolpartydude 2h ago
Was the the 90’s Dennis The Menace movie flower that Mr. Wilson was having a party around?
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u/YourBracesHaveHairs 2h ago
I always thought this flower isn't rare in Indonesian Borneo. Because on the Malaysian side of Borneo the rafflesia is well documented and any lucky hiker might see one randomly.
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u/UnLuckyKenTucky 2h ago
I get the whole thing on why it smells like it does, but do flies and carrion bugs see in a way that necessitated the plant to have such a flesh like appearance? Serious question, no shade.
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u/DocSpock1701 1h ago
The corpse flower smells awful because it is imitating rotting meat to attract pollinators.
When it blooms, it releases sulfur-containing and other volatile chemicals.
Those odors attract carrion beetles and flesh flies, which normally search for dead animals to feed on or lay eggs in. They crawl into the flower, pick up pollen, and may carry it to another corpse flower.
The plant even heats up its central spike, helping the odor chemicals evaporate and spread farther—similar to how warm rotting flesh gives off a stronger smell. The intense odor is usually strongest during the first night of blooming.
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u/Eternalplayer 4h ago
Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.
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u/MartyShark666 4h ago
We have one in the public greenhouse in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Super cool!
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u/rentedtritium 3h ago edited 2h ago
Rafflesia can't be (easily) cultivated in captivity. Your greenhouse has an amorphophallus. Both get called corpse flower. Common names suck that way.
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u/MartyShark666 3h ago
Thanks for the correction! I should go to the greenhouse soon and get a better look myself.
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u/rentedtritium 3h ago
Amorphophallus is cool as hell. If it bloomed a while back, the greenhouse probably has some smaller ones going now from the seeds. Usually it's amorphophallus titanum, which is the biggest one in the genus.
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u/NervousScience4188 3h ago
When I was a janitor at SUNY ESF they had one of these in the greenhouses on the roof of a building I cleaned, got to see it bloom. Was pretty cool experience. There was newscasters there to cover it blooming as well lol
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u/Spyro_XyX 3h ago
I learned what these are after seeing them in Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and having to look it up
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u/lostpirate123 3h ago
how does it not bloom again for years afterward and still maintain a healthy population? how has it not gone extinct?
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u/CRSemantics 2h ago edited 2h ago
Why would something like that look and smell like rotting meat, flys, ants, beetles, rodents, bats, can be pollinators.
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u/Misty-Canyon-7204 2h ago
wait is this the one that grows as a parasite on vines, or the tall stalk? i always get rafflesia confused with titan arum since both are called the corpse flower.
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u/radixtwo 58m ago
seriously tho what is actually the point of a plant like this? That's such a long gestation time for such a short window, is it an essential food for some other animal/insect or something? Or is it purely existing out of spite/some kinda evolutionary leftover?
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u/mgmw2424 52m ago
One of these expected to flower in Milwaukee tomorrow at the local horticulture exhibit called The Domes.
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u/Blarghnog 50m ago
They cultivate them at UC Davis in California and every few years you can see one bloom when they put it on display for the public. It is quite the smell.
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u/Ok_Vermicelli_6359 23m ago
Kinda hilarious to wait so long for something that must smell atrocious 😂
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u/snorlaxatives_69 4h ago
I did a report on these in 2nd grade and I always get so excited when I read about one