360 



FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



thick, and in some places three quarters of an 

 inch : the substance of it was very succulent. When 

 I first saw it, a swarm of flies were hovering over the 

 mouth of the nectary, and apparently laying their 

 eggs in the substance of it. It had precisely the 

 smell of tainted beef. It measured a full yard 



Fig. 81. — Rafflesia Arnoldi, reduced from photograph of 

 living flower. 



across ; the petals, which were subrotund, being 

 twelve inches from the base to the apex, and it 

 being about a foot from the insertion of the one 

 petal to the opposite one. The nectary, in the 

 opinion of all of us, would hold twelve pints, and 



