After spending 9 months as a bud, looking like a black cabbage, he blooms in full glory for 3 days before wilting into an ugly black clump. This is his second big day. Yes, it's a 'he', a male plant. Male? Please ask Pak Din how to determine sex of Rafflesia - he does a BLOG too.
Not exactly the largest bloom (that honour belongs to R. arnoldii, found in Sumatera), it is nevertheless an impressive sight (compare size with blue credit card).
The lobes (not just 'petals', okay) are hard and sturdy (tastes bitter, don't ask me how I find that out), and the circular window in the middle of the diaphram is abuzz with activities, as all manners of flies, attracted to its pungent rotting-flesh kinda odour, enter and exit. Great pollinators, these.
I gingerly poke my nose into the window, and yes indeed, the smell is overpowering (is that a rotting dead dog on the roadside?), but I was more worried of flies getting into my facial orifices! That'd be nasty.
