Beautiful Dresses

Rafflesia arnoldii is a member of the genus Rafflesia. It is noted for producing the largest individual flower on earth. It has a very strong and horrible odor of decaying flesh, earning it the nickname "corpse flower". It is endemic to the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Although there are some plants with larger flowering organs like the titan arum and talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera), those are technically clusters of many flowers. Rafflesia arnoldii is one of the three national flowers in Indonesia, the other two being the white jasmine and moon orchid. It was officially recognized as a national "rare flower" in Presidential Decree No. 4 in 1993. The generic name, Rafflesia (given in honour of Sir Raffles), proposed by Brown (who had originally wanted to call it Arnoldii) after Joseph Arnold, was validated by S.F. Gray in his report of the June 1820 meeting of the Linnean Society of London, as published in the Annals of Philosophy in September that year. The species Rafflesia arnoldii was officially described for the first time in 1821 by Brown, so that Arnold was commemorated after all.