A scientific expedition in Sumatra, Indonesia, ended on a poignant note after researchers found an extremely rare specimen of Rafflesia hasselti, a giant, parasitic flower that is difficult to locate. To date, most available material on the genre has come from 19th-century illustrations.
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Local biologist Setien “Dicky” Andrekitat, who had been researching the plant for 13 years, fell to his knees and cried when he saw it. A video posted on social media on Monday shows the reaction.
British botanist Chris Thorogood, an associate professor at the University of Oxford who was responsible for the images at that moment, said: “He had been searching for this flower for 13 years.”
According to Thorogood, this species is so difficult to spot that it has been “seen by more tigers than humans.”
“It grows inside the forest, at night, and it took us two days of walking day and night to find it. Few people have ever seen this flower, and we saw it bloom at night. It was magical,” the researcher told
Thorogood described the silent experience in front of the factory as “something from another planet.” The rarity is explained by the cycle of Rafflesia hassseltii: the bud takes up to nine months to develop and remains open for only a few days.
The flower, about the size of a watermelon, slowly opened its petals throughout the night, allowing scientists to record its flowering for the first time. This species, which is completely parasitic, lives inside tropical vines and only emerges to flower – a period that lasts about a week.
In addition to its unusual appearance, the plant exudes an odor similar to that of decaying meat, a strategy that attracts flies for pollination. However, the scent is less intense than that of other species of the genus, such as Rafflesia arnoldi, which is the largest in the world, and is known as the “corpse flower.”
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