Rafflesia. Rafflesien. Rafflesia. Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants.
It contains approximately 28 species (including four incompletely characterized species as recognized by Willem Meijer in 1997), all found in southeastern Asia, on Indonesia, Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, Thailand and the Philippines.[1] Rafflesia was found in the Indonesian rain forest by an Indonesian guide working for Dr. Joseph Arnold in 1818, and named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the leader of the expedition. It was discovered even earlier by Louis Deschamps in Java between 1791 and 1794, but his notes and illustrations, seized by the British in 1803, were not available to western science until 1861. Rafflesia. [edit] Familia: Rafflesiaceae Genus: Rafflesia Species (20 accepted): R. arnoldii – R. baletei – R. borneensis – R. cantleyi – R. gadutensis – R. hasseltii – R. horsfieldii – R. keithii – R. kerrii – R. lagascae – R. leonardii – R. manillana – R. micropylora – R. mira – R. philippensis – R. pricei – R. rochussenii – R. schadenbergiana – R. speciosa – R. tengkuadlinii [source: The Plant List, plus (1) R. lagascae as accepted] In synonymy (1): R. magnifica Check (9): R. azlanii – R. bengkuluensis – R. ciliata – R. lobata – R. patma – R. titan – R. tuan-mudae – R. verrucosa – R. witkampii.
