QUEER FLOWERS. 177 



QUEEE FLOWEES. 



By GKANT ALLEN. 



IF Baron Munchausen had ever in the course of his travels come 

 across a single flower one standard British yard in diameter, fif- 

 teen pounds avoirdupois in weight, and forming a cup big enough to 

 hold six quarts of water in its central hollow, it is not improbable 

 that the learned baron's veracious account of the new plant might 

 have been met with the same polite incredulity which his other ad- 

 ventures shared with those of Bruce, Stanley, Mendez Pinto, and Du 

 Chaillu. Nevertheless, a big blossom of this enormous size has been 

 well known to botanists ever since the beginning of the present cent- 

 ury. When Sir Stamford Raffles was taking care of Sumatra during 

 our temporary annexation, he happened one day to light upon a gi- 

 gantic parasite, which grew on the stem of a prostrate creeper in the 

 densest part of the tropical jungle. It measured nine feet round and 

 three feet across ; it had five large, fleshy petals with a central basin ; 

 and it was mottled red in hue, being, in fact, in color and texture 

 surprisingly suggestive of raw beefsteak. One flower was open when 

 Sir Stamford came upon it ; the other was in the bud, and looked in 

 that state extremely like a very big red cabbage. Specimens of this 

 surprising find were at once forwarded to England (how, history does 

 not inform us) ; and, after the place of the plant in the classificatory 

 system had been strenuously fought out with the usual scientific 

 amenities, it was at last duly labeled (through no fault of its own), 

 after the names of its two discoverers, as Rafflesia Aimokli. 



The mere size of this mammoth among flowers would in itself 

 naturally suffice to give it a distinct claim to respectful attention ; but 

 Rafflesia possesses many other sterling qualities far more calculated 

 than simple bigness to endear it to a large and varied circle of insect 

 acquaintances. The oddest thing about it, indeed, is the fact that it 

 is a deliberately deceptive and alluring blossom. As soon as it was 

 first discovered. Dr. Arnold noticed that it possessed a very curious 

 carrion-smell, exactly like that of putrefying meat. He also observed 

 that this smell attracted flies in large numbers by false pretenses to 

 settle in the center of the cup. But it is only of late years that the 

 real significance and connection of these curious facts have come to be 

 perceived. We now know that Rafflesia is a flower which wickedly 

 and feloniously lays itself out to deceive the confiding meat-flies and 

 to starve their helpless infants in the midst of apparent plenty. The 

 majority of legitimate flowers (if I may be allowed the expression) 

 get themselves decently fertilized by bees and butterflies, who may be 

 considered as representing the regular trade, and who carry the fecun- 

 dating pollen on their heads and proboscises from one blossom to an- 

 TOL. xxTi.— 12 



