Rhizanthes zippelii

The giant flowers are from 12 to 18 cm when mature, exceptionally 29 cm across. The only plants on Java remotely similar to Rhizanthes zippelii are those of the genus Rafflesia, but the similarly giant and foul-smelling flowers of Rafflesia always have five perianth-lobes. Rh. zippelii, on the other hand, has many more -how many more varies, but there are generally 14 to 18 of such lobes, although 16 is the most common. These lobes are furthermore different by ending in a long hanging strips, with its reddish-brown flesh colour and texture, the flower thus looking like a big, fat, dead octopus on its head. The flower is scentless when it first opens, but the odour soon grows fetid and rank, smelling of rotting carrion. The flower also changes colour as it opens: at first it is white or red, but over the following days it turns brown with anthesis, eventually turning black with senescence. The texture of the perianth (the big outer parts) is firm and fleshy to stiff and leathery. The outside of the flower is smooth to the touch (glabrous), but the inside has many hairs and minuscule, stalked warts. The hairs are long, brown and patent (spreading at around 45° from the surface -not erect or pressed to the surface). …

Due to the taxonomic changes described above the distribution of Rhizanthes zippelii has changed with the change of perspectives. As it is now defined by Bänzinger and Hansen, Rh. zippelii is an endemic of Java. Rh. zippelii was collected for the first time in western Borneo in 1935, but the identification was based on characters which are now disregarded. Writing in 1988, Meijer mentioned that the plant had not been seen on Java since before the Second World War. He mentions that botanists were likely the main reason for the decline of the species, at least at Mount Salak, the most well-known collecting locality near Bogor. Another reason for its continued absence was the further development of plantations in the area, but he suspected that the main reason why the plant had not been seen for such a long time was that the network of dedicated volunteers taking 'jungle hikes' in search of the flowers had disappeared when the Dutch colonial period ended, as had the Dutch-language journals which published information and coordinated people interested in such plants. Moreover, many of the old collecting localities had not been visited by botanists for many decades. Thus he doubted the species was extinct on Java. …

This strange plant is a holoparasite of the roots of the jungle liana Tetrastigma papillosum, a plant related to the grape vine. The flowers bud out of the thicker base roots of the vine, just below the surface of the soil. In the Sundanese language the host vine is known as susuan, thus the name for Rhizanthes zippelii is perut susuan, the 'belly of susuan'. It appears to prefer to grow in the densest thickets in tropical rainforest on steep slopes, which is one reason it is little seen.

== References ==

Blume commemorated the horticulturist and plant collector Alexander Zippelius with the specific epithet (an eponym), who partially assumed his duties at the Bogor Botanical Gardens in Java when Blume departed for the Low Countries to write a proper flora of the region. Zippelius collected the first specimens of this new species of plant on Mount Salak, not far from Bogor. Zippelius was an important collector for Blume, he died from disease in Timor during a botanical expedition to the Moluccas, western New Guinea and other islands of the region. The generic epithet derives from the compound of the Ancient Greek words ῥίζα (pronounced rhíza), meaning 'root', with the word ἄνθος (anthos) meaning 'flower'.