Weirdest Flowers in the World

Call them weird, unique, unusual or rare, these are flowers you will definitely not want in your home garden. The only place to see them is in botanical gardens and arboretums, unless you want to travel to see them in their native habitat. These plants are a good example of Mother Nature's sense of humor.

Rafflesia arnoldii is not only one of the rarest flowers in the world, it is also the largest. The plant grows only in the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Rafflesia arnoldii produces just one flower that measures 3 feet in diameter, weighs about 25 pounds and has the aroma of rotting fish. The plant has no leaves, roots or stems of its own, but rather it produces small, thread-like structures that grow into and eat other plants. The flower itself actually grows inside the host plant. The stem that the flower grows on is, in actuality, the remains of the host plant.

Welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis) is a desert plant that looks like a huge, dead, green flower. The plant consists of two leaves, a stem base and roots and lives from 400 to 1,500 years and grows up to 12 feet long. The plant grows in only one place, the Namib Desert in Nambia and Angola. The plant also produces seed cones, even though it has no flowers.

Hydnora triceps is unique or weird in three ways. The fruits and flowers grow underground, the plant has no chlorophyl and it has no leaves or anything that resembles a leaf. The plant is found in southern Nambia and a small area just south of the Orange River of South Africa. It is a parasitic plant that lives off of the Euphorbia dregeana It is also pollinated in a weird way. The buds push the soil hard enough to create a crack large enough for pollinating insects -which are attracted to the plant by a rather foul odor- to get access to the flowers.

Corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) grows more than 6 feet tall and 45 inches wide. The plant is found in the rainforests of central Sumatra. The corpse flower holds two records, one for the largest flower and one for the largest corm. The flower blooms first and is followed by a single leaf that divides at the top to produce an umbrella-shaped group of leaflets up to 49 feet in circumference. The plant gets its name from the rotting meat smell it produces to induce insects for pollination. Pollination does not come easily to the corpse plant. It does not produce many seeds and the ones it does produce rarely grow because the female flowers and the male flowers are out of sinc. It needs another plant nearby that has male flowers that boom at the same time as the female on the original.

Sources:

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