Find out the origin of giant rot flowers

The 200-year mystery of the location of the world's largest flower in the family diagram of the last plants was decoded. Scientists were surprised to find a plant with a bright red flower, 1 meter wide and giving off this rotting flesh belonging to a family of plants that only hatched tiny flowers.

One cannot put Rafflesiaceae in any branch because it has incredible properties, such as no roots, no leaves, and no body. Its giant flower, weighing up to 7 kg and has the same color and taste as rotting flesh, attracts a lot of flies to pollinate them.

And this strange flower, growing at the bottom of Southeast Asia's dense forest is also a parasite. They do not tolerate photosynthesis but live on tropical vines and eat the nutrients from the host plants.

Botanists analyzed DNA to delve into the roots of Rafflesiaceae and found it in the Euphorbiaceae family. The trees of this family, including rubber trees, castor trees, cassava, all have very small flowers.

Rafflesiaceae Flowers (Photo: BBC)

Charles Davis, assistant professor of biological and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, author of the study, said: "These plants are very strange, seem to come from other planets, placing them anywhere in the tree. The family needs to explain a lot, but the strange thing is that they are in the group of plants that produce very small flowers.

Botanists believe that about 46 million years ago, the flowers of this plant evolved at a dizzying rate. They surmised that the flower grew from just 2 mm to a huge size at that stage.

There are two main benefits to having such a large flower, Professor Davis said."These trees appear on the lowest level in the tropical forest with weak light, so they have no way to promote their flowers to insects that pollinate. By taking full advantage of the surface. The surface, they can give off an impressive smell that goes a long way to seduce flies. Big size also becomes an effective sign for flies to know and pollinate. "

The tallest tree in the world Titan Arum, nearly 3 meters tall, also emits rotten flesh, but it does not belong to this family.

MT