The Largest Flower in the World.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 451, 5 March 1890, Page 3

The Largest Flower in the World.

In the farthest south-eastern island of the Philippine group Mindinao, upon one of its mountains, Parag, in the neighbourhood of the highest peak on the island, tho volcano Apo, a party of botanical and ethnographical explorers found recently, at the height of 2,500 feet above the sea level, a colossal flower. The discoverer, Dr. Alexander Schadenberg, could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw amid the low-grow-ing bushes, tho immense buds of the flowerlike gigantic brown cabbage heads. But he was still more astonished when he found a specimen in full bloom, a five-petalled flower nearly a yard in diameter —as large as a carriage wheel, in fact. This enormous blossom was borne on a sort of vine creeping on the ground. The native who accompanied Dr. Schadenberg called it bolo. Tho party had no scale by which theweightofthe flower could be ascertained, but they improvised a swinging scale, using their boxes and specimens as weights. Weighing these when opportunity served, it was found that a single flower weighed over twenty-two pounds. It was impossible to transport the fresh flower, so the traveller photographed it, and dried a number of its leaves by the heat of the fire. Dr. Schadenberg then sent the photographs and dried specimens to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Breslau, where the learned director immediately recognised it as a species of rafflesia, a'plant formerly discovered in Sumatra, and named after the English Governor, Sir Stamford Raffles. The new flower was accordingly named Rafflesia Schadenbergia. The five petals of the immense flower are oval and creamy white, and grow around a centro filled with countless long, violet-hued stamens; thicker and longer in the fertile flower than in the infertile.