As such, Rafflesia individuals are only visible when they erupt from within the host body as a flower bud.
Although traditional means of studying Rafflesia , like anatomical sectioning, could be performed, this method would likely result in death of both the host and parasite.
Second, Rafflesia is rare in occurrence and can only be found in relatively remote lowland forests of Southeast Asia. In this region, much of its habitat has been converted to farm land or timber concessions and in some parts of its range, the buds are harvested and sold for their purported medicinal qualities.
Third, even once Rafflesia individuals become visible as flowers, these only survive a few days before decomposing. All of these factors make it difficult to even find Rafflesia sites and even when they are known, the sites are often not protected so there is no guarantee that they will exist in subsequent years. For this reason, there is great interest in conserving Rafflesia sites rather than eradicating existing populations as is the case for noxious parasitic plant weeds.
Rafflesia is endemic in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Known as the corpse flower due to its offending smell, Rafflesia is a parasite to the wild grapes of the vine genus Tetrastigma, which provides everything necessary for Rafflesia to survive.
This process happens once a year, when Rafflesia grows to its maximum diameter with five leathery, red spotted petals around a bowl-like center that swallows flies and insects for further sustenance. Up to nine months elapse between the stages of seed to pod to flower, with the final monstrous display staying in bloom for only a few days.
No one knows exactly when this process occurs. They are more vulnerable because of direct exploitation of the flower buds as traditional medicine. In Peninsular Malaysia, the Rafflesia "cabbage-heads" stage is highly sought after by village medicine men for its purported medicinal attributes.
The post-partum decoction prepared by boiling buds in water are taken by mothers recuperating from childbirth, in the belief that the liquid can help restore their health and strength. The Rafflesia flowers also suffer from over-collection by illegal souvenir hunters.
To conserve Rafflesia , one has to deal with several important aspects such as maintaining viable population size, life cycle, reducing the pressure of human and wildlife activities, and managing their habitats. Such complicated attributes could lead the difficulty to predict the future of the Rafflesia.
Therefore, we should consider all possible means to conserve the species. There are, at least, two major approaches to conserve the Rafflesia , in situ and ex situ approaches. The most promising approach is in situ conservation which should be based on the special ecological, environmental, biological characteristics and attributes of local habitat and social economics of surrounding villages where rafflesias occur. This approach can be differentiated into two major conservation managements, based on the where the Rafflesia are found.
The first category is conservation scheme for Rafflesia within the protected forest areas, and the second is in any working scheme outside the protected forest areas, which can be in private lands. Many private land owners and parks wish to have these gigantic and iconic parasites growing in their vicinity, hence the question is herein posed, is it viable to have them in the garden or park. The ex situ approach that the propagation of Rafflesia outside their natural habitats is a possible mean to conserve the plants.
Yet, there are two important aspects that should be taken into careful consideration, before applying this approach. First, the experiments in Bogor Botanical Garden were conducted through transplanting Rafflesia including their host plants into the garden.
Even if the host plant, Tetrastigma is common in the forests, this method should be conducted on rigid considerations, such as if the population size is much above the threshold of extinction, which is very rare for recent time, or if in some reasons, there is no other ways to protect the species population. For example, the forest where Rafflesia occurs, might be logged, or converted to plantations or other land-uses.
It should be kept in mind that transplanting a single old stem of Rafflesia infested vine could mean transplanting the whole all flower buds from its wild into ex situ area. The unsuccessful transplantation means the disappearing of the whole local population.
After all, it is hard to imagine that conservation can be done by destruction ways. By , those three species were flowering in the garden. The last report on flowering of these domesticated species was in and none thereafter. Leiden Botanical Garden horticulturist conducted another success story, when he successfully inoculated seeds of R.
Four year later, the Rafflesia flowered. Since then, there has been no report on the Rafflesia blooming in the garden. The second factor is the low reproductive success of Rafflesia. The inoculation of single seed of Rafflesia into the vine is very difficult, even if it occurs, then we do not know for certain whether the seed turns to a mature bud, and further, a flower.
The Bogor Botanical Garden as well as Leiden Botanical garden experiments seemed to successfully inoculate and, to produce the flowering Rafflesia , for some early period of time, but they did not last long.
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