Kate Teltscher

The world’s largest flower is also its ugliest

Known as ‘corpse flower’, the sinister Rafflesia resembles slabs of bloody, white-flecked meat, emits the scent of rotting flesh and eventually subsides into a mass of black slime

Rafflesia, one of the strangest and most gruesome plants on the planet. [Alamy]
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  • Pathless Forest: The Quest to Save the World’s Largest Flowers

    Chris Thorogood

    Allen Lane, pp. 288, £25

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