Flowers are different. Some are simply pleasing to the eye in the garden or in a bouquet. But there are real monsters that are even scary to look at.
The largest flowers
The largest single flower in the world is called Rafflesia Arnoldi. This plant is blood red. And it can reach a width of up to 90 centimeters and weigh about 11 kilograms. This is one of the heaviest flowers in the world. 
The colorful Rafflesia flower consists of exactly five fleshy petals. And they rarely open. The giant blooms for only three or four days, and after pollination for a long seven months, the fruit develops in the flower. It contains up to four million seeds.
For the first time, blood-red Rafflesia was seen on the island of Sumatra. The discoverers were botanist Joseph Arnold and officer Stamford Raffles. They compiled the first scientific description of the flower, indicating its size and gave it a rather sonorous name - Rafflesia Arnoldi. However, local residents have long known about the existence of this unusual plant and called it not so beautifully - "bunga patma". It translates as "lotus flower".
The tallest flower
Rafflesia Arntoldi is the widest flower in the world, and the three-meter Amorphophallus Titanium is called the tallest. It is also known by the names "corpse flower", "voodoo lily" and "snake palm". 
Amorphophallus spends a lot of time in the form of a large tuber, which is half a meter in diameter and weighs about 50 kilograms. In the spring, a spotted stalk-stalk appears from it. The flower is formed very quickly. The plant adds 7 cm per day. The total weight of a blossoming flower can reach 75 kg.
In all its glory, Amorphophallus titanic can be seen for several days. But this time is enough to "enjoy" all the splendor of the plant. It was not in vain that the record holder was given several names that convey the essence of the flower - it smells like rotting corpses.
After the flower has died, the leaves begin to actively develop. They can reach a height of six meters and have a diameter of up to five meters. After the tuber has exhausted its entire supply of energy, the plant hibernates for four months. After awakening, the development process of Amorphophallus is repeated anew.
This plant was discovered by an Italian botanist named Odoardo Beciari in 1878. The largest specimen ever found was over three meters tall and weighed about 75 kilograms.
The tree with the largest inflorescence
Talipot palm, or corypha umbrella - has the largest inflorescence. It can grow up to 8 meters. The inflorescence consists of several million small flowers, which are formed on a branched stem at the top of the trunk. 
Corypha umbrella itself is a fan palm, which is perhaps the largest palm tree in the world. Individual plants can grow up to 25 meters in height and have a trunk diameter of up to 1.5 meters (but this is at the base). Huge membranous leaves reach 5 meters in diameter and 4 meters in length.
Talipot palm blooms only once, between the age of 30 and 80 years. And about a year passes from the flowering period to the fruiting period. Well, ripe fruits, the number of which reaches a thousand, look like round yellow-green fruits, relatively small, compared to the palm itself - only 3-4 centimeters. The fruit has one seed. After the fruiting process ends, the palm tree dies.
The birthplace of the record-breaking palm is southern India, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and China.
The largest smelly succulent
Stapelia is a small, undersized plant of the succulent genus. Numerous fleshy stems with clearly marked edges branch at the base. The plant is native to South Africa. 
The size of the flowers of the slipway differs in different types, but they all exude the aroma of rotten meat. The most modest flowers in diameter do not exceed 5 cm, the largest can reach 30-40 cm.
Stapelia petals are covered with soft hairs. Various flies sit on them, which the flower lures with a putrid aroma. The task of insects is to pollinate the plant.
Stapelia is famous all over the world under different names, including: starfish flower, giant toad flower, star cactus, Zulu giant and others. Some types of slipway are grown in a number of countries as a container crop. Quite often, she is given a place in rock gardens.
Huge flower - Stapelia
Flowers Stapelia giant can grow up to forty-one centimeters in diameter. The flowers are flesh-colored, covered in hairs, and emit the smell of rotting meat. The plant, according to the site, has several names - Zulu giant, star cactus, starfish flower.
The largest predator flower
An unusual plant is the giant Gidnora African flower, which grows in the deserts of South Africa. Appearing above the sandy ground, a fleshy flower emits the aroma of excrement, thus attracting dung beetles. The plant feeds on insects, acting as a trap. 
In continuation of the floral theme, we invite you to look at the most ancient rose bush, which is more than a thousand years old.
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We all remember the fairy tale "Thumbelina". A little girl was born from a flower. He must have seemed huge to her. But this is fiction, a fantasy. Are there really big flowers on our planet? Of course have. What Mother Nature hasn't come up with!
Rafflesia Arnoldi
This is the largest flower in the world. He cannot be found equal in the whole world. This plant belongs to the Rafflesia family, which has about 30 species.
Interestingly, Rafflesia arnóldii (Rafflésia arnóldii) - the largest flower in the world - can only be found in the jungle on the island of Kalimantan and Sumatra - the largest islands of the Malay Archipelago, which, in turn, is the largest archipelago in the world. How nature brought together all the very best! Unfortunately, today this miracle is becoming rarer. The giant Rafflesia Arnoldi is on the brink of extinction.
Other species of this family grow in areas of Southeast Asia - in the Philippines, in Indonesia, on the island of Java.
The miracle plant got its name in honor of two scientists:
- Joseph Arnold, an English physician who discovered the huge flower while working in Sumatra. Although it is reliably known that the miracle plant was shown to Arnold by a local resident, whose name remained unknown;
- Raffles Stamford, a naturalist who studied and described the new species.
The flower core has the form of a bowl with high sides and a diameter of up to 1 meter (the largest known specimen had a core diameter of 1.6 meters). During tropical downpours, the core bowl collects 7-9 liters of rainwater. Around it are five petals 0.5 meters long and up to 5 cm thick. The total weight of the flower reaches 10 kg!
The natives call it "lotus flower", "corpse line" or "carrion lily", because the smell of the flower is terrible. A kilometer away from him smells of rotten meat. This exclusive "flavor" attracts flies that pollinate Rafflesia Arnoldi.
Locals use the plant to make medicinal infusions. They are drunk by men to restore potency, and women - to maintain a good figure.
A very interesting cycle of development of the largest flower in the world. Seeds (very small, it is difficult to even see them, up to 4 million seeds ripen in one plant) penetrate under the bark of the "host" and freeze for 18 months. After a year and a half, they wake up and release thin suction cups, with the help of which they begin to feed on the juice of the mother plant. Gradually, a thickening-kidney is formed at the site of seed introduction. The kidney grows and transforms into a large bud. This process takes 3 long years. The bud also opens very slowly - another 9-18 months. But the “corpse lily” blooms for only 4-5 days, turning afterward into a black shapeless mass that stores seeds in itself. Animals that step on Rafflesia fruits carry the seeds throughout the rainforest.
Here is such an amazing largest flower in the world - Rafflesia Arnoldi!
What are the largest flowers growing on Earth? Amorphophallus Titanium - perennial, belonging to the Aroid family, which has more than 3000 species. The flower comes from the tropics, from the island of Sumatra. Unfortunately, today it can no longer be found there, as people have completely exterminated the outlandish plant. It has been preserved as a species in several large botanical gardens and scientific biological centers.
Amorphophallus grows from a huge tuber. The plant has a short powerful stem and a single giant leaf several meters wide, up to 3 meters long and 10 cm thick. This amazing representative of the flora blooms once every 7-10 years. Before that, sheds a leaf and falls into "hibernation" for 3-4 months, gaining strength and nutrients. And then Amorphophallus throws out a flower.
The inflorescence of this plant is one of the largest in the world. It reaches a height of 3 meters, a width of 1.5 meters. It looks like a huge yellow cob. In its lower part, the flower itself is located in the form of a corrugated burgundy-purple cape. Another unique feature of the plant is that it heats up to 40 ° C during flowering.
Flowering lasts only 1-2 weeks. Because of its rarity and spectacle, the bloom of Amorphophallus is a big event in the world of botany. Tourists also do not want to miss such a moment, coming from all over the world to take a selfie next to an amazing flower.
The plant has only one, but a very significant drawback: it strongly stinks of rotten eggs, rotten fish and meat. For this deadly "aroma", which simply eats away the eyes, the flower is called "rotting" or "corpse".
This plant is not a flower, but I would like to mention it due to the fact that its inflorescence is the largest in the world. It has a height of more than 10 meters with a diameter of more than 2 meters! Consists of 12-15 thousand tiny flowers. Puya Raymonda throws out a peduncle and bears fruit only 1 time in 80-150 years of life, after which it dies, leaving behind 10-12 million ripe seeds. They are carried around by the wind, but germinate from the entire huge amount of no more than 3-5 seeds. Puya grows in isolation, per 1 sq. km of range accounts for only 1 plant. So they stand, huge lonely candles, in Peru, in Bolivia and in the Andes.
Puya belongs to the Bromeliad family, which has a record number of species - more than two thousand! Named after the naturalist Anthony Raimondi, who devoted his whole life to the study and description of this plant.
Puya Raymonda took another gold medal for herself - this plant is the oldest living on the planet. Scientists have nicknamed it "plant-dinosaur." According to rough estimates, the species is several million years old.
Flowers are designed to delight with their beauty and subtle scent, but there are some flowers that you can hardly give to someone. This applies to the largest flowers in the world - giant flowers. You can only surprise with these flowers - both in their size and in their unusual smell.
From this article you will learn the name of the largest flower blooming on our planet Earth.
Of all flowering plants, for their huge size, two of the largest flowers in the world are distinguished: in width and weight - this is Rafflesia Arnoldi (Rafflesia arnoldii) and in height - this is Amorphophallus Titanium (Amorphophallus Titanium). With which we will get to know in the article closer.
Rafflesia ArnoldiThis amazing flower, growing on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, got its name from the names of the scientists who discovered it - T.S. Raffles and D. Arnoldi. The local population also calls it "lotus flower" or "corpse lily". So far, only twelve species of Rafflesia are known to exist.
The process of the appearance of a flower is very long: a bud swells from a seed for a year and a half, and then ripens into a bud for 9 months, which blooms for only 3-4 days. The rafflesia flower itself is bright red with white growths, but for all its beauty, it has the smell of rotting meat to attract a large number of insects.
At the end of flowering, rafflesia decomposes and turns into a shapeless black mass that sticks to the hooves of large animals, thus ensuring the transfer of seeds to a new place.
Locals appreciate this flower and believe that rafflesia has a positive effect on sexual function and helps to restore a woman's figure after childbirth.
Amorphophallus Titanium or titanicThis largest flower in the world was also discovered on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but after people arrived there, it was almost completely exterminated, so you can admire its impressive size in the botanical gardens of the world.
The plant itself grows from a huge tuber and is a short and thick stem, at the base of which there is a single matte green leaf with white transverse stripes 10 cm thick, up to 3 m long and 1 m in diameter, and smaller leaves are located above it.
Before blooming, and this happens once every 5-8 years, amorphophallus sheds this leaf and it has a dormant period (about 4 months). And then the flower itself appears 2.5 - 3 meters high: a yellow ear, consisting of female (in the lower part), male flowers (middle part) and neutral (at the end), wrapped in burgundy green 
cape - coverlet. During flowering, which lasts only two days, the upper part of the ear heats up to 40 ° C and begins to exude a “flavor”: a mixture of smells of rotten eggs, meat and fish, which is why the locals also call it “corpse flower”. This amazing plant lives up to 40 years.
Growing this unusual flower in botanical gardens causes great excitement among tourists, as many people want to find out which flower is called the largest and stinkiest in the world without visiting the tropics of Indonesia.
If you are unlikely to succeed in getting such giant flowers at home, then you will be able to surprise the guests or even you.
... which flower is the largest in the world?
It is hard to believe that the world's largest flower is a plant taller than a man, foul-smelling like a decaying dead animal, and having the dark red color of a rotting body. But the Indonesian Amorphophallus Titanum, or "cadaverous flower" as the locals call it, is a reality, a phenomenon pollinated in natural conditions by carrion-seeking insects.
These plants not only live in the wild, but many have bloomed in the past few years in botanical gardens around the world. The last of these, causing a great uproar, bloomed for the first time in public in Washington. The public interest in the life of the flower is so high that the Botanical Garden has established a hotline with records of updated information on the progress of the flower.
A mature "corpse" flower emerges from a huge tuber stored underground once every three years. To produce this gigantic, ornate inflorescence, the plant makes a lot of effort. When young, the plant develops a single leaf, which can reach the size and appearance of a small tree with many leaves. However, in preparation for several days of flowering, the plant must shed its leaf and remain dormant for more than 4 months to store energy.
An adult eight-year-old flower is usually 1.82 m tall. However, in May 2003, an inflorescence appeared in Bonn that reached a height of 2.74 m. The previous record was set in 1932, when a flower in Holland reached 2.67 m in height.
According to scientists, this giant flower also changes the temperature of the environment. The experiment was carried out at night. From 20 degrees the temperature in the room rose to 32°C. The increase in temperature occurred from 23:00 to 3–4:00 in the morning, when the temperature again dropped to 20 degrees.
Italian botanists first recorded a plant of this class in 1878. The first such flower grown in captivity was cultivated in the English Royal Botanic Gardens in 1889, causing such a sensation in society that it took police to control the crowd.
AT last years the rainforests of Sumatra have been affected by civilization and pollution, and it is not known how many flowers of this species have died. Indonesian experts believe the flowers are in danger. One fact is reassuring: such a huge interest in this unusual plant makes scientists grow it in artificial conditions.
By the way, the weight of a flower can reach 75 kg.
In the Bogor Botanical Garden, located near the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, founded by the Dutch colonialists, the largest flower in the world, Amorphophallus titanium, bloomed on July 7. It is not easy to translate its name from learned Latin so that it can be pronounced in a decent society. A fairly rough translation would sound like this: "Shapeless titanic phallus." However, to put it very precisely, then our hero is the largest inflorescence in the world, not a flower. Among the flowers, the palm belongs to the giant Rafflesia arnoldi, reaching a meter in diameter, whose homeland is located in the same place as that of amorphophallus - in the jungle of the western part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which is one of the world record holders for biological diversity. However, rafflesia, although large, but all however, it is significantly inferior in size to amorphophallus, sometimes growing up to three and a half meters in height. And the difference between an inflorescence and a flower can still be understood only by a professional botanist.
Rafflesia - it is this creation of nature that bears the proud title of "the largest flower in the world." the plant surprises not only with its size, but also with its other qualities, which have little to do with the usual ideas about flowers. After all, the largest flower is a fetid, bright red plant, sometimes exceeding human height. By the way, because of the disgusting smell, Rafflesia is often called a corpse lily. Although the locals call this plant "lotus flower" ("bunga patma"). You can see it in Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan) and the Philippines.
It got its name in honor of officer T. Raffles and botanist D. Arnold. The discovery was made on The mentioned discoverers measured the flower, gave it a name and a scientific description.
It is the unusual smell of rafflesia that attracts flies that pollinate this flower. Getting on the flower disk, the flies flounder in it, gradually falling down. In the annular furrow, fine hairs guide the flies to the stamens, which shed sticky pollen on their backs. Insects weighed down with a burden go to female flowers, fertilizing their ovules. But after ripening, the plant needs the help of a large animal that can crush the fruit and transfer the Rafflesia seeds to another place. It is worth noting that a blossoming in diameter can be equal to 1 m and weigh about 8 kg. In addition, rafflesia has the widest inflorescence.
On the this moment scientists distinguish 12 types of rafflesia. The most famous among them are rafflesia tuan muda and rafflesia arnoldi. These species have the largest flowers. Even rafflesia sapria reaches 15-20 cm in diameter. It is interesting that the Indonesians claim that the extract from the buds of the named plant contributes to the restoration. As for scientists, they admit that the life of this unique flower has not yet been fully studied.
