Rafflesia patma

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Rafflesia patma
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Malpighiales
Family: Rafflesiaceae
Genus: Rafflesia
Species:
R. patma
Binomial name
Rafflesia patma
Synonyms
  • see text

Rafflesia patma is a parasitic plant species of the genus Rafflesia . [2] It is only known to grow on the Indonesian island of Java, although it may have occurred on Sumatra in the past (and may still occur there). Like other species in its genus, this plant has no leaves, stems, roots or chlorophyll, instead stealing all its nutrition from Tetrastigma lanceolaurium , a rainforest liana.

Contents

The anatomy of this plant has devolved into mycelium-like strands of cells infecting the internal vascular system of its host. The species' five-lobed flowers measure 30 to 60 cm across, and stink with the odour of rotting flesh. This stench attracts mostly female carrion flies searching for a place to lay their eggs. When they fly inside the large pot-like structure in the middle of the flower, they find a central column inside, topped with a wart-covered disc-like plate; under the rim of this plate they find a small crevice, into which they crawl believing they have found an opening into the soft parts of a rotting body -instead, the rim is shaped in such a way that, when investigating, their backs are thus smeared with the jelly-like pollen if the Rafflesia flower is male, or it is pressed against a zone of modified stigmas if the flower is female.

Taxonomy

Rafflesia patma was first collected in 1824 from the then still completely forested Indonesian island of Kembangan, located off the Indian Ocean coast of Java. According to Willem Meijer it was found by an unknown collector sent by the then young man Carl Ludwig Blume, then director of the Bogor Botanical Gardens as well as a number of other colonial government positions, who was using his personal wealth garnered from his first wife to send collectors throughout Java. [3] Kees van Steenis, on the other hand, states it was Blume himself who did all of his collecting, and likely analysed his specimens and wrote the descriptions in situ in preparation for publication. [4]

Blume then used this collection to formally describe the plant as a new species in 1825, including it in the strange new genus Rafflesia, [1] which had only been described a few years earlier. [5] [6] Blume apparently only had six works on taxonomy with him in Java to identify plants at the time, including the 1820 work by William Jack in the British Sumatra colony, which included the first published scientific description of a Rafflesia, Rafflesia titan . [4]

Etymology

The specific epithet is derived from patma, the Javanese vernacular name of the plant. [7] That name itself originates etymologically from the word पद्म (padma), Sanskrit for 'lotus'. [8]

Synonymy

The wider world of Western science was first introduced to the giant flowers of Rafflesia in a classic article by Robert Brown in the Transactions of the Linnean Society , published in 1821, but read before the Society in 1820, and distributed throughout Western Europe in pre-print. [5] In this reading and publication Brown introduced the name R. horsfieldii for a plant from Java. [9] No holotype exists, Brown never saw an actual plant: a drawing was made of the plant in Java by the American naturalist Thomas Horsfield which was sent to England, but this has been lost for a very long time. [5] [10] Brown originally described a plant which had flowers 3 inches across. In his later publication on the genus Rafflesia, [10] published in 1840 (finally, a decade after the paper was read before the Society), [5] Brown changed the description to state that the radius was 3 inches, and the flower thus 6 inches across. [10]

The authors of the 1963 (English version of the) Flora of Java offered the theory that Brown had been confused with Rhizanthes zippelii , and proposed to synonymise the name Rafflesia horsfieldii with that taxon, [10] [11] but this theory was later rejected by Willem Meijer in 1988, the Rafflesia expert at the time, on the basis of the flowers being too small, and because Brown described the plant as otherwise similar in form to R. arnoldii, with processus on the columna – while Rhizanthes quite obviously have many more perianth-lobes than the five of Rafflesia, making this unlikely to be overlooked by Brown. No Rhizanthes species is known with such relatively small flowers. There are a few Rafflesia species with flowers down to 5 inches across, but these occur in the Philippines, far from Java. [10]

In 1999, David Mabberley, writing a work on the place of Brown in the history of botany, stated that Meijer had "inexplicably" ignored the name during his work revising the taxonomy of the Rafflesiaceae in the 1990s. Mabberley was apparently himself ignorant of the preceding synonymy with Rhizanthes, and did not consult the relevant works, and as such synonymised the species with the largest flowers on Java, R. patma, with R. horsfieldii, with the simple explanation of "Brown's remarks". [5] In fact, Meijer had stated that on the basis Brown's remarks, and without the drawing, it may be impossible to ever know what Brown was referring to. [10] Nevertheless, as of October 2020, databases such as Plants of the World Online have indexed Mabberley's taxonomic interpretation, [2] although R. patma is accepted as the correct name for the extant taxon by other sources. [12]

In 1997 Meijer made the very rarely seen R. zollingeriana a synonym of R. patma, [3] but molecular studies published 2010 into the genetic variation of the genus found that R. zollingeriana was distinct. [12]

Description

This species is gonochorous. The flowers measure 30 to 60 cm across, and stink with the odour of rotting flesh. The buds, often called 'knops' by Indonesian researchers, bud out of the roots of the host vine, or the bases of the stems. In some cases a large number of buds in different stages of development can appear. [11]

Similar species

Rafflesia patma shares Java with two other species of Rafflesia: R. zollingeriana, the most common, and R. rochussenii. R. zollingeriana only occurs inland in the mountains of the southeast of the island, although R. patma does occur on or along the southern coasts. R. rochussenii is the only species on the island in which the tiny stalked warts (ramenta) on the inside surface of the perianth-tube are shaped somewhat like disc-like knobs on long stalks. In R. patma these warts are reduced or even somewhat absent, but in R. zollingeriana the tube is densely covered in ramenta ending in acute points, and some of the ramenta can be branched. [11] The pale colour of R. patma flowers is also a distinctive characteristic. [13]

Distribution

This plant perhaps only occurs on the island of Java in Indonesia. [14] It is thought to also have occurred in southern Sumatra, but overharvesting of the flowers may have caused it to become extirpated from this island. [3]

Ecology

Rafflesia patma is a holoparasite of Tetrastigma lanceolaurium , a rainforest liana in the Vitaceae, the botanical family that includes the grape vine. [11]

Conservation

A population is protected within Pananjung Pangandaran Nature Reserve. [13]

Related Research Articles

<i>Rafflesia</i> Genus of flowering plants

Rafflesia, or stinking corpse lily, is a genus of parasitic flowering plants in the family Rafflesiaceae. The species have enormous flowers, the buds rising from the ground or directly from the lower stems of their host plants; one species has the largest flower in the world. Plants of the World Online lists up to 41 species from this genus, all of them are found throughout Southeast Asia.

<i>Rafflesia arnoldii</i> Species of flowering plant

Rafflesia arnoldii, the corpse flower, or giant padma, is a species of flowering plant in the parasitic genus Rafflesia. It is noted for producing the largest individual flower on Earth. It has a strong and unpleasant odor of decaying flesh. It is native to the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo. Although there are some plants with larger flowering organs like the titan arum and talipot palm, those are technically clusters of many flowers.

<i>Dysoxylum</i> Genus of plants in the family Meliaceae

Dysoxylum is a genus of rainforest trees and shrubs in the flowering plant family Meliaceae. About 34 species are recognised in the genus, distributed from India and southern China, through southeast Asia to New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Australia. The name Dysoxylum derives from the Greek word ‘Dys’ meaning "bad" referring to "ill-smelling" and ‘Xylon’ meaning "wood".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rafflesiaceae</span> Family of flowering plants

The Rafflesiaceae are a family of rare parasitic plants comprising 36 species in 3 genera found in the tropical forests of east and southeast Asia, including Rafflesia arnoldii, which has the largest flowers of all plants. The plants are endoparasites of vines in the genus Tetrastigma (Vitaceae) and lack stems, leaves, roots, and any photosynthetic tissue. They rely entirely on their host plants for both water and nutrients, and only then emerge as flowers from the roots or lower stems of the host plants.

<i>Saribus rotundifolius</i> Species of palm

Saribus rotundifolius, also known as the footstool palm, is a common fan palm found in Southeast Asia. It is a member of the genus Saribus.

<i>Sapria</i> Genus of flowering plants

Sapria is a genus of parasitic flowering plants in the family Rafflesiaceae. It grows within roots of Vitis and Tetrastigma. The genus is limited to the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia.

<i>Trichoglottis</i> Genus of orchid

Trichoglottis, commonly known as cherub orchids or 毛舌兰属 , is a genus of flowering plants in the family Orchidaceae. Orchids in this genus are epiphytic plants with thick roots, relatively thick, fibrous stems and many large, thick, leathery leaves arranged in two ranks. The flowers are usually small and yellowish with light brown or purple markings. The flowers have broad sepals, narrower petals and a labellum which has three lobes and is often hairy. There are about 85 species distributed from tropical and subtropical Asia to the north-western Pacific. Most species grow in rainforest.

Rafflesia philippensis is a parasitic plant species of the Rafflesiaceae family that was named by Francisco Manuel Blanco in his Flora de Filipinas in 1845. The species is known only from a mountain located between the provinces of Laguna and Quezon, Luzon where it was first discovered. Its plant host is Tetrastigma pisicarpum. This species went unnoticed since its first description by Blanco but was rediscovered in 2003 by members of the Tanggol Kalikasan, a local environment conservation group in Quezon province who first saw and photographed the open flower of this species. It was brought to the attention of Manuel S. Enverga University (MSEUF), who formed a team composed of students and faculty to document the newly discovered Rafflesia species.

<i>Rafflesia zollingeriana</i> Species of flowering plant

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, also in the Jember Regency somewhat further down the coast to the east.

<i>Rhizanthes</i> Genus of flowering plants

Rhizanthes is a genus of four species of parasitic flowering plants in the family Rafflesiaceae. They are without leaves, stems, roots, or photosynthetic tissue, and grow within the roots of a few species of Tetrastigma vines. The genus is limited to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. The flowers of Rhizanthes are very large, they vary from 14 to 43 cm in diameter. At least one species of Rhizanthes, Rh. lowii, is endothermic.

Rhizanthes lowii is a species of parasitic flowering plant without leaves, stems, roots, or photosynthetic tissue. It grows on the roots of the Tetrastigma vine. It includes the specimens with the largest measured flowers in Rhizanthes, from 25 to 43 cm across. The flowers are endothermic, not only producing their own heat, but they also have the rare ability to regulate their own temperature.

Rhizanthes zippelii is a species of parasitic flowering plant without leaves, stems, roots, or photosynthetic tissue. Its flowers bud out of the roots of the Tetrastigma vine. It is found in the tropical rainforests of Java. The flowers are reddish-brown, with long hanging tips, and are from 12 to 29 cm across.

<i>Balanophora</i> Genus of flowering plants

Balanophora is a genus of parasitic flowering plants in the family Balanophoraceae found in parts of tropical and temperate Asia, including the Eastern Himalayas, Malesia region, Pacific Islands, Madagascar, and tropical Africa. There are about 20 accepted species, including the newly discovered B. coralliformis. Many species emit an odour which possibly attracts pollinators in the same way that pollinators are attracted to Rafflesia.

<i>Goniocheton arborescens</i> Species of plant in the family Meliaceae

Goniocheton arborescens, commonly known in Australia as Mossman mahogany, is a small tree in the mahogany family Meliaceae. It is native to rainforests of Malesia, Papuasia, Queensland and nearby islands.

<i>Rafflesia verrucosa</i> Species of plant

Rafflesia verrucosa was first identified and characterized during a small mammal survey of Mt. Kampalili in eastern Mindanao in 2010. R. verrucosa is the tenth species of Rafflesia found in the Philippines. Rafflesia species have rare and unusual flowers known for their large size and pungent smell. Some plant enthusiasts like Frits W. Went have gone to extreme measures to see these plants in bloom. Went detailed his search for Rafflesia saying,

"I had heard, when I was in Java many years ago, that Rafflesia were to be found on an offshore island named Nusah Kembangan. This was in 1929, when it was a penal colony for major criminals. My driver on this occasion was a convicted murderer, and my guide was serving time for cannibalism."

Rafflesia witkampii is a plant species in the genus Rafflesia. Rafflesia witkampii is a parasitic flowering plant. Meijer (1997) provided a comprehensive treatment of Rafflesia in Flora Malesiana, where he reported five "incompletely known species": R. borneensis Koord., R. ciliate Koord, R. titan Jack, R. tuan-mudae Becc., and R. witkampii Koord. These five species were considered to be incomplete due to the lack of well-preserved specimens or a convincing type specimen, to a poor description, or to a description based on an immature bud. Nais (2001) re-instated R. tuan-mundae, R. witkampii, and R. zollingeriana in his account on Rafflesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Lee Nickrent</span> American botanist

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Zippelia begoniifolia is the only species of the monotypic genus Zippelia, a genus of plants in the Piperaceae, the same botanical family as that of black pepper. The species has also been spelled as Z. begoniaefolia. It is an erect, ascending, perennial herb with leaves of 6 to 12.5 cm in length. It occurs in Borneo, Cambodia, southern-central and southeast mainland China as well as Hainan, Java, Laos, Peninsular Malaysia, the Philippines, Sumatra, Thailand and Vietnam.

Rafflesia meijeri is a species of parasitic flowering plant in the genus Rafflesia. It was first described by Harry Wiriadinata and Rismita Sari in 2010. It is known from a single location, Sicikeh-Cikeh, a nature park in North Sumatra.

Rafflesia lawangensis is a species of parasitic plant in the genus Rafflesia. It is exclusively found in Bukit Lawang, a small tourist village in Mount Leuser National Park, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Previously misidentified as Rafflesia arnoldii, photographs taken in 2005 led to the eventual separation of Rafflesia lawangensis as a distinct species in 2010.

References

  1. 1 2 "Rafflesia patma". International Plant Names Index . The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries and Australian National Botanic Gardens. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Rafflesia patma Blume", Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, retrieved 2020-10-27
  3. 1 2 3 Willem, Meijer (1997). "Rafflesiaceae". Flora Malesiana. Vol. 13. Leiden: Hortus Botanicus Leiden, under auspices of Foundation Flora Malesiana. p. 19. ISBN   90-71236-33-1.
  4. 1 2 van Steenis, Cornelis Gijsbert Gerrit Jan (3 August 1989). "Dedication to the memory of Carl Ludwig Blume". Flora Malesiana. Vol. 10, part 4. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publications, under auspices of Foundation Flora Malesiana. p. 9. ISBN   0-7923-0421-7.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Mabberley, David John (1999). "Robert Brown on Rafflesia" (PDF). Blumea. 44 (2): 343–350. ISSN   2212-1676 . Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  6. ↑ "Rafflesia". International Plant Names Index . The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries and Australian National Botanic Gardens. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  7. ↑ Burkill, Isaac Henry (April 1930). "An Index to the Malay Vernacular Names with comments". The Gardens' bulletin; Straits Settlements. 3 (6 (part 2)): 300. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  8. ↑ Sir Richard James Wilkinson (primarily based on the works of). "Searching native orthography for "patma", "pakma"". SEAlang Library Malay. SEAlang. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  9. ↑ "Rafflesia horsfieldii". International Plant Names Index . The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries and Australian National Botanic Gardens. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Meijer, W.; Veldkamp, J. F. (1988). "A revision of Rhizanthes (Rafflesiaceae)" (PDF). Blumea. 33 (2): 329–342. ISSN   2212-1676 . Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Backer, C. A.; Bakhuizen van den Brink, R. C. (1963). Flora of Java. Vol. I. Groningen: N.V. P. Noordhoff under auspices of Rijksherbarium, Leyden. pp. 164–166.
  12. 1 2 Bendiksby, Mika; Schumacher, Trond; Gussarova, Galina; Nais, Jamili; Mat-Salleh, Kamarudin; Sofiyanti, Nery; Madulid, Domingo; Smith, Stephen A. & Barkman, Todd (2010-11-01), "Elucidating the evolutionary history of the Southeast Asian, holoparasitic, giant-flowered Rafflesiaceae: Pliocene vicariance, morphological convergence and character displacement", Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 57 (2): 620–633, doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.08.005
  13. 1 2 Nickrent, Dan (23 March 2019). "Rafflesia patma page". Parasitic Plant Connection. Southern Illinois University. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  14. ↑ Nickrent, Dan (23 March 2019). "The Genus Rafflesia". Parasitic Plant Connection. Southern Illinois University. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
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