Of piranha was ugly, but it is a wonderful plant remaining poor reproductive organs

In fact, parasitic flower ( Sapria himalayana Griff.) Is one kind rafflesiaceae parasitic flower under the 1987, appeared in the Keno Hill in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, and in the following decades, China territory almost did not see a trace of parasitic flower. we should be more familiar with its close relative who Rafflesia is called "piranha" in. 
　　1818 years, the Governor of the British East India Company in the Far East Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles) under the jurisdiction of the Singapore year before, he and Natural Science conducted a field survey on the home islands Dr. Joseph Arnold (Dr. Joseph Arnold) in a western Indonesia called Sumatra (Sumatra) of.
　　In the lush rainforest, they found an unusually large flowers, it's up to one meter in diameter, about 7 kg in weight, blood red and speckled corolla, exudes intense rancid flavor . Even more incredible is that it does not significantly roots, stems, leaves and other organs, Joseph Arnold described it as "the greatest genius in the plant kingdom."
　　Future generations will be named Arnold Rafflesia ( Rafflesia arnoldi i ), to commemorate scientific expedition led by Joseph Arnold, and in the name of Raffles this type of flower named Rafflesia genus ( Rafflesia ) , we call Rafflesia genus But you may be more familiar with it, "piranha", "carrion flower" and other nicknames.
　　Parasitic Rafflesia flower belong rafflesiaceae (Rafflesiaceae Dumort). Rafflesia is the world's largest flower plants, mainly grown at an altitude of 500-700 m altitude rainforests, the "world Kao" in the world. 
　　It can swallow the big people, in its efforts to reach the site there is a huge gap, like a mouth as wide open, and there is little jagged protrusions, exudes stench of rotting corpses, in the deification of various folklore, it became one of the prototype "piranha" in. Although this species Rafflesia very far away from us, but it is very active in film and television drama and games, but corpse flower belongs to the Araceae in an equally carrion smell of the plant.
　　 However Rafflesia really do not eat people, precisely it is not meat, so it seems even a little more than a friendly pitcher plants and the Venus flytrap and so on. Rafflesia is a parasitic plant, primarily parasitic on roots, stems, leaves of the vine. strange is that it completely abandoned the roots, stems, leaves and other vegetative organs, there is no chloroplast photosynthesis to create their own nutrients, leaving only a very simple structure. Nutrient Ever since Rafflesia needed to grow all come from the host - it degenerate into mycelium by state organs, absorb nutrients in the invasion of host tissue.
　　 Unlike most flowering plants, Rafflesia does not require root, sprout, grow and other developmental stages of nutrition, then directly into the flowering period , Rafflesia this life cycle is very special. It is a long period of time have maintained the status of the embryo, but after long deliberation out of the huge flowers last only 4-5 days.
　　King spent early growth stages, mycelium-like structure similar to a endophytes (endophyte) survival in the host body. As the name suggests, endophyte is a certain stage or all stages of tissue and internal organs of living in a healthy plant fungi or bacteria.
　　Before entering the flowering period, Rafflesia all life activities are carried out in the host body. Such a chain structure endogenous initially only one cell wide, followed by single cell divide along a direction perpendicular to the axis, to produce a multi-row structure, but in this process the cells are not differentiated to retain the undifferentiated embryonic cells basic features: large nuclei, granular cytoplasmic dense, sometimes small vacuoles appear.
　　These cells aggregated to form the teardrop parasitic cell population, referred to PLB (protocorm). With the continued growth of PLB, the cells began to differentiate various services appear flowering structures, such as to prevent the formation of bracts at break bud injury to host roots and stem tissue of hard wood.
　　Interestingly, the Rafflesia buds on the vine just when out, only table tennis so much. After nine months of slow growth, to be able to become very large, its outside wrapped in black film Splitting occurs, exposing the red jade bud.
　　On the last day of flowering, its blood-red petals gradually darken and begin to wither, in a few weeks it will become a pool of viscous black substance. Successful pollinated female flowers are formed gradually over the next seven months and a half rotten fruit spherical shape, of up to 15 cm in diameter, brown lignified epidermis, filled with milky, lipid-rich flesh under the peel, which comprises with thousands of miniature pieces of red-brown seeds.
　　There had been no direct studies show how the seeds of Rafflesia is spread, do not know how it is parasitic on the host body. Some scholars believe Rafflesia seed sticky, deer, wild boar and other animals after accidentally touching them will be carrying multiply everywhere.
　　 Because Rafflesia growth and development are completed in the host body, until when will appear in vitro flowering, most of the time it is in "hidden and not see", which greatly increases scientists find in the wild the difficulty of Rafflesia, is a real "can not be met." That is why, after two centuries of rafflesiaceae plants to be found in its place in the natural system has been unable to be determined.
　　Although Rafflesia no rumors so terrible, but it does not seem human-friendly, intense rancid flavor make it difficult to close, and some even describe the smell as Rafflesia carrion and feces smell mixed odor. It is not difficult to understand why the earlier explorers it's treated like the piranha - the smell should come from it has just eaten corpses of it.
　　Now we know the Rafflesia this foul odor from their own synthesis of volatile substances, many large animals react in the face of Rafflesia unique "flower" is also, like us, will stay away as much as possible, so Rafflesia able to avoid a lot of "catastrophe." You can imagine such a huge flowers, if elephants just passing through, probably does not want to step on hard.
　　And this is just the rancid taste flies scavengers favorite, just these small animals can also help themselves pollination, so Rafflesia will make every effort to play to the limit this feature. Some species of Rafflesia order to make their further transfer of taste, but also can heat to facilitate evaporation. Also in Rafflesia population had flowers, the finger-like projections are at the top of the central disc may act as a radiator diverging means, to act further dispersed odor. 
　　it is not difficult to understand why Rafflesia size so great. At the bottom of tropical rain forest fainter, larger flowers more easily transferred powder were found certain genetic advantages. but considering the host itself for the carrying capacity of host plants, flowers or limit itself, Rafflesia's body did not grow indefinitely, it exists a critical value, the Rafflesia need to help yourself as much as possible by other means more pollination, such as mentioned above to attract scavengers foul odor, while the smaller and medium-sized Rafflesia population will by producing more flowers to make up for the lack of a single flower size. 
　　In order to better play carrion, blood Rafflesia decorated with brightly colored or white or yellow spots on the red petals, while flies and other small animals follow scent recruited, and will not feel cheated. In addition hairy surface structure of the flower magnate good imitation of touch animal fur, so when these insects arrive take off, it will produce a find carrion illusion. Rafflesia can say is pay attention to smell these pollinators, visual and tactile experience. 
　　Some enchanted insects lay their eggs in the king would take, but waiting to be hatched out these little life must be the lack of food and death.
　　Carefully observe the Rafflesia, we will find that its flowers have a very strange flower room structure , which can play the role of pollinators stuck to a certain extent, in order to maximize its flowers in time, in order to increase the chance of contact with the biological scavengers style or anthers flies.
　　Rafflesia flower chamber is similar to a housing structure within Chamber floral and annular hollow membrane composition, i.e., a general term perianth calyx and corolla. Rafflesiaceae plants flower in different species have different morphological flower room, of course, did not take some kind of room. Indoor flower is called a central axis column structure with which the stamen or pistil genital Rafflesia.
　　Three plant individuals under rafflesiaceae.
　　A. Rafflesia a whorl composition flower and the separator chamber formed by five perianth lobes
　　B.Rhizanthes without diaphragm, the central axis of the column exposed
　　C. parasitic flowers two whorls (perianth five lobes each, a total of ten), and composition flower chamber diaphragm
　　in addition to increasing the residence time of insects, pollen male flowers will form a liquid slurry form. When in contact with the pollinator anthers, pollen slurry be deposited on its back. Even if the slurry dries, pollen can survive for several days. When contacting surface Stigma pollen, pollen will rehydrated, in order to complete fertilization.
　　In order to breed Rafflesia can be quite best, and formed a close to perfect breeding system. Unfortunately, its extremely short flowering period and low population density, a flower and then perfectly what? Pollinating animals spend a few days during the period of the opposite sex can not find another one flower, but finally not very good breeding. Naturally, the king spent in 1984 was classified as "suffering from the most serious threats worldwide and endangered plants." 
　　If you want to protect these plants, we need to understand their mode of reproduction and development of biologically relevant genetic information. 2018, after a lapse of several decades our scientists in the area 500 meters away from Xishuangbanna again found a two parasitic flowers, which open one male, one female flowers open. Researchers their artificial pollination, six months later, the harvest was mature fruit. Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences this means is the second in the world, but also China's first obtain a parasitic flower seeds Botanical Garden. 
　　parasitic Fruit of the appearance of black, pasty, flat disc-shaped, about six centimeters in diameter, in the same manner exudes unpleasant odors. After the cleaning process, the researchers received a total of 38,907 seeds, each seed length of only 40 to 50 microns, and in stark contrast to the parasitic flower size.
　　Then the parasitic Rafflesia flower Why can grow to be so big? Scientists found that the analysis by molecular biology techniques, rafflesiaceae is differentiated from smaller flowers Euphorbiaceae in about 46 million years ago. As time progresses, the Corolla increased more than 20 centimeters, nearly 100 years until it evolved quickly to become the world's largest flower.
　　Even now, biotechnology has made a leap of progress, but this "can not be met," the rafflesiaceae plant is still very mysterious. We successfully obtained a parasitic flower seed is undoubtedly a huge step forward, and its genetic analysis and evolution can help us unravel "Rafflesia why so much" doubts.
　　Indeed there are many who are worthy of us to explore the unknown.

Of piranha was ugly, but it is a wonderful plant remaining poor reproductive organs

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