My husband is back from Indonesia. Now here’s irony for you: the immigration there was highly suspicious of his brand new passport, issued just that morning, and demanded to see his old one! Fortunately he had it with him.
And here are some more plants – flower and buds – from Cameron Highlands that he wants me to put up…maybe he wants to freak Karen out again. They are related to the Rafflesia, they are also parasitic and leafless, but somewhat smaller, in this case growing on the host’s root in the ground.
Name? Rhaizanthes infanticida. Hmm. Not sure why they should be called infant killers, but maybe Karen has a point…and the dead one looks decidedly evil. Perhaps it has murderous designs on the buds?*
*Just checked with husband. Seems the flower kills the larvae of any insect unwise enough to consider it a suitable creche.
It is an evil looking thing isn’t it? Maybe useful in the home to keep down the insects, I don’t think.!!!
Yeah, evil Rafflesia. Looks like something that crawled out of the Spiderman 3 movie. A bigger one might make a cool monstruous plant for a forest in a fantasy world though.
It may not look attractive but you have to admire it for its tenacity for survival, defence and a difficult procreation method.
Hrugaar, when I saw the photo of the dead plantI had the same thought as you of the alien thing in SM3.
Um, what’s to admire in a difficult procreation method?
On second thoughts, never mind, I’m not sure that I want to know!