About

Rafflesia zollingeriana is a species of flowering plant in the family Rafflesiaceae, native to Java. Of three species of Rafflesia known from Java, this species has always been the most rare and restricted. It is only known from collection locales in Banyuwangi Regency, Jember Regency and Lumajang Regency, southern East Java. It was first scientifically collected in 1902 by Sijfert Hendrik Koorders on the eastern flanks of Mount Puger Watangan, a forested hill near the beach, who described it as a new species in 1918. Many decades later, a flowering plant was discovered in Meru Betiri National Park, and also in the Jember Regency, somewhat further down the coast to the east.

Locals in Jember and Lumajang Regency know this plant by the name of patmo sari, patmosari and/or padmosari in Javanese.

Where it grows

It is only known from flowering individual plants seen at a number of locations in southeastern Java, until 2017 all of them in the Jember Regency. The first place it was collected was in 1902 at the forestry research station (boschproefstation) at low elevations on the eastern flanks of a hill called Puger Watangan, not far from the beach (Pantai Puger) near the village of Puger. It had perhaps also been seen on neighbouring Mount Sadeng in Jember Regency in the 1910s, but was thereafter not seen for many decades, until a flowering plant was discovered in Meru Betiri National Park, also in the Jember Regency, but somewhat further down the coast to the east, and stretching to Banyuwangi Regency. The Indonesian experts Zuhud and Hikmat rediscovered the species here in 1987. Interviews with locals living around the park has uncovered many more localities, including one outside the park's borders.

Uses

The buds (knop) were harvested by locals for use in jamu, Javanese herbalism, a situation first reported in the book by Zuhud et al. in 1998. The bud was sliced and dried before use. In the 1980s, traders paid a price of 1500 rupiah per kilogram of a dried bud in the villages, as opposed to 400 rupiah for 1 kg of rice. Buds were then exported to the nearby city of Jember or the main centres of herbalism - Surabaya and Solo. Collectors reported finding 1 to 30 knop in the forest, collecting all the buds they could find. Collectors did not entirely known what it was used for. Traders reported in the 2010s that the business was drying up -demand was softening and thus lowering prices, collection was more difficult due to patrols of forest rangers, and there were few collectors left, thus supply was constricting. Villagers reported they had stopped collecting in 2001, and that buds had run out in the areas around the villages -one needed to trek deeper into the National Park to find them.

Other Rafflesia plants

Stinking corpse lily · Rafflesia aurantia · Rafflesia azlanii · Rafflesia baletei · Rafflesia bengkuluensis · Rafflesia borneensis · Rafflesia cantleyi · Rafflesia ciliata · Rafflesia consueloae · Rafflesia gadutensis · Rafflesia hasseltii · Rafflesia keithii