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Rafflesia hasseltii is a leafless, rootless parasite that lives inside Tetrastigma vines and only shows its giant, foul-smelling flower when it blooms. It cannot be grown as a garden or houseplant and needs its specific host vine and forest conditions.
Rafflesia hasseltii is a parasitic plant species of the genus Rafflesia and the family Rafflesiaceae which is hosted by certain Tetrastigma species. It is native to Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia. R. hasseltii has by far the widest variation in form, color and pattern of any of the rafflesias.
R. hasseltii can only be found on several locations in Kerinci Seblat National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia, and Peninsular Malaysia, including Taman Negara and Temengor Forest Reserve. The type locality of the species in what is now West Sumatra, where it was first described, had gone extinct as a result of local plantation expansion.
Traditional tribes such as the Orang Asli sell the flowers as a folk medicine. In laboratory rat experiments, extracts from the buds of this plant have shown potential in accelerating wound healing.
Stinking corpse lily · Rafflesia aurantia · Rafflesia azlanii · Rafflesia baletei · Rafflesia bengkuluensis · Rafflesia borneensis · Rafflesia cantleyi · Rafflesia ciliata · Rafflesia consueloae · Rafflesia gadutensis · Rafflesia keithii · Rafflesia kemumu
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rafflesia hasseltii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
