Backyard's Mini-Rafflesias

Ever seen a flower that is as big as a car tyre and as smelly as rotten meat? Such a flower would be a Rafflesia Flower but I found a few flowers who are also that big and smelly- in my own backyard. Can you believe that?

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I was walking around my backyard hunting when I smelt something really bad, like rotten meat. I thought that there should be a dead rat somewhere around but didn't find any. Suddenly the smell stopped. And then its started again. What exactly was this? I found my way to a few giant maroon flowers. As you can see in the picture, its was big and had flies all around. It had a horrible stench, the worse that I have ever smelt. This was how the inside of the flower looked like, often full of flies.

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I have to admit that i was forcing myself to take these few shots. The smell was so bad that I could not even go close for a while. But it looked like at some moment, the flower could control its smell. At first it was really smelly, and then suddenly the smell was gone, and then back again. More flies appeared when the stench grew even more unbearable.

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Here's another one of the big flowers. This one was slowly dying off. I've circled a 'Trilobite Beetle' that was on the flower. Click on the image to see the beetle more clearly. I'll post about them next.

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