Page 6 - Ninja Plants: Survival and Adaptation in the Plant World

The Rafflesia doesn’t have leaves to carry out photosynthesis. Instead, this parasitic plant
latches onto a tropical grapevine and extracts nutrients from this host. The Rafflesia also
smells like rotting meat, an odor that entices insect pollinators.

and the founder of modern Singapore, once a British trading post. The
flower of this rare and exotic species smells like rotten flesh, so it’s
easy for pollinators to find it in the forest. The Rafflesia, often called
the stinking corpse lily, produces the largest flower in the world—as
big as 40 inches (102 centimeters) in diameter. That’s more than 3 feet
(1 meter) across! The plant’s beautiful orange flower usually opens for
only four days a year and then shrivels into a black, slimy mess. The
horrid smell it emits attracts carrion flies. When the flower is in bloom,
flies move around inside it, collecting its sticky and gooey pollen on
their bodies. In this way, they transfer pollen between male and female
parts of the flower, enabling fertilization.

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N I NJ A P L AN T S