titan

RAFFLESIA TITAN Sumatran name Peliman Sikuddi or Devil's Siri box Native of the forests in the interior of Sumatra particularly those of Passummah Ulu Manna where it was first discovered by Sir TS Raffles on his journey into that country in 1818 This gigantic flower is parasitic on the lower stems and roots of the Cissus an gustifolia Roxb It appears at first in the form of a small round knob which gradually increases in size The flower bud is invested by numerous membranaceous shenths which surround it in successive layers and expand as the bud enlarges until at length they merely form a cup round its base These sheaths or bracts are large round concave of a firm membranaceous consistence and of a brown colour The bud before expansion is depressed round with five obscure angles nearly a foot in diameter and of a deep dusky red The flower when fully expanded is in point of size the wonder of the vegetable kingdom its breadth across from the tip of the one petal to the tip of the other being little short of three feet The cup may be estimated capable of containing twelve pints and the weight of the whole is from twelve to fifteen pounds The inside of the cup is of an intense purple and more or less densely villous with soft flexible spines of the same colour towards the mouth it is marked with numerous depressed spots of the purest white contrasting strongly with the purple of the surrounding substance which is considerably elevated on their lower side The petals are of a brick red with numerous pustular spots of a lighter colour The whole substance of the flower is not less than half an inch thick and of a firm fleshy consistence It soon after expansion begins to give out a smell of decaying animal matter The perianth is cyathiform narrowed at the mouth which is further contracted by a nectarial ring which surrounds it leaning inwards The limb is five parted somewhat reflexed but turning upwards again at the point the lobes subrotund and thick In the centre of the cup rises a thick column truncate and nearly flat on the top At its base is a prominent ring or cord and another a little above both homogeneous in substance with the column The summit of the column or stigma is a flat disk about six inches in diameter from which rise from forty to sixty corniculate processes nearly erect but diverging a little from the centre the upper edge is thin and rises up like the rim of a salver the lower edge is incumbent and somewhat revolute The sides of the column are angular In the male the stamina are arranged in a circle under the lower edge of the stigma by which they are concealed Each stamen is lodged in a proper hollow separated from the next by a process of the revolute edge Filaments none Anthers sessile globular about the size of a pea dark coloured attached to the lower surface of the stigma They have a white depressed spot on the summit in the centre of which is a pore or foramen for the emission of the pollen The whole substance is spongy and cellular In the female the column is precisely similar but wants the anthers and their hollows In the centre its substance is full of irregular fissures on the surface of which numerous minute seeds are observed The fruit never bursts but the whole plant gradually rots away and the seeds mix with the putrid mass Such are the characters of this very extraordinary vegetable which appears to have little affinity with any other and to be as unique in its mode of fructification as in size It was as already mentioned first discovered by Sir Stamford Raffles in the forests of Passummah Ulu Manna and the specimens were forwarded by him to England in 1818 In the following year numerous additional specimens were procured from various parts of the country and an opportunity afforded for more minute examination the particulars of which are contained in the foregoing short account The greater part of these specimens have been transmitted to England together with the observations made on the recent plants Some time after their despatch a letter was received from Sir Joseph Banks acknowledging the receipt of the first specimens which had all proved to be males and suggesting the probability of the plant being parasitic a conjecture which had during the interim been ascertained to be correct by investigation on the spot It will perhaps not be unacceptable to our readers if I here subjoin some extracts from the admirable history of the male plant in the 13th volume of the Transactions of the Linnaean Society and a very reduced figure of it done from the same work together with some account of a second species discovered by Dr Blume and published in his rare and costly work the Flora Javce The accounts that first reached England of the Rajjlesia were communicated in a letter to the late Sir Joseph Banks extracts from which Mr Brown has published of Sumatra with the following remarks This gigantic flower which forms the subject of the present communication was discovered in 1818 on Sir Stamford's first journey from Bencoolen into the interior In that journey he was accompanied by a Naturalist of great zeal and acquirements the late Dr Joseph Arnold a member of this Society from whose researches aided by the friendship and influence of the governor in an island so favourably situated and so imperfectly explored as Sumatra the greatest expectations had been formed But these expectations were never to be realized for the same letter which gave the account of the gigantic flower brought also the intelligence of Dr Arnold's death As in this letter many important particulars are stated respecting the plant which I am about to describe and a just tribute is paid to the merits of the Naturalist by whom it was discovered I shall introduce my account by the following extract Bencoolen Aug 1818 You will lament to hear that we have lost Dr Arnold he fell a sacrifice to his exertions on my first tour into the interior and died of fever about a fortnight ago It is impossible I can do justice to his memory by any feeble encomiums I may on his character he was in every what he should have been devoted science and the acquisition of knowledge aiming only at usefulness I had hoped instead of the melancholy I have now to communicate that we should have been able to send you an account of our many interesting discoveries from the hand of Dr Arnold At the period of his death he had not done much all was arrangement for extensive acquirements in every branch of Natural History I shall go on with the collections as well as I can and hereafter communicate with you respecting them and in the mean time content myself with giving you the best account I am able of the largest and most magnificent flower which so far as we know has yet been described Fortunately I have found part of a letter from poor Arnold to some unknown friend written while he was on board ship and a short time before his death from which the following is an extract After giving an account of our journey to Passummah he thus proceeds But here at Pulo Lebbar on the Manna River two days journey inland of Manna I rejoice to tell you I happened to meet with what I consider as the greatest prodigy of the vegetable world I had ventured some way from the party when one of the Malay servants came running to me with wonder in his eyes and said Come with me Sir come a flower very large beautiful wonderful I immediately went with the man about a hundred yards in the jungle and he pointed to a flower growing close to the ground under the bushes which was truly astonishing My first impulse was to cut it up and carry it to the hut I therefore seized the Malay's parang a sort of instrument like a woodman's chopping hook and finding that it sprang from a small root which ran horizontally about as large as two fingers or a little more I soon detached it and removed it to our hut To tell you the truth had I been alone and had there been no witnesses I should I think have been fearful of mentioning the dimensions of this flower so much does it exceed every flower I have ever seen or heard of I had Sir Stamford and Lady Raffles with me and a Mr Palsgrave a respectable man resident at Manna who though equally astonished with myself yet are able to testify as to the truth The whole flower was of a very thick substance the petals and nectary being but in few places les6 than a quarter of an inch thick and in some places three quarters of an inch the substance of it was very succulent When I first saw it a swarm of flies were hovering over the mouth of the nectary and apparently laying their eggs in the substance of it It had precisely the smell of tainted beef The calyx consisted of several roundish dark brown concave leaves which seemed to be indefinite in number and were unequal in size There were five petals attached to the nectary which were thick and covered with protuberances of a yellowish white varying in size the interstices being of a brick red colour The nectarium was cyathiform becoming narrower towards the top The centre of the nectarium gave rise to a large pistil which I can hardly describe at the top of which were about twenty processes somewhat curved and sharp at the end resembling a cow's horns there were as many smaller very short processes A little more than half way down a brown cord about the size of common whip cord but quite smooth surrounded what perhaps is the germen and a little below it was another cord somewhat moniliform Now for the dimensions which are the most astonishing part of the flower It measured a full yard across the petals which were subrotund being twelve inches from the base to the apex and it being about a foot from the insertion of the one petal to the opposite one Sir Stamford Lady Raffles and myself taking immediate measures to be accurate in this respect by pinning four large sheets of paper together and cutting them to the precise size of the flower The nectarium in the opinion all of us would hold twelve pints and the weight of this prodigy we calculated to be fifteen pounds I have said nothing about the stamina in fact I am not certain of the part I ought to call stamina If the moniliform cord surrounding the base of the pistil were sessile anthers it must be a polyan drous plant but I am uncertain what the large germen contained perhaps might be concealed anthers within it It was not examined on the spot it was intended to preserve it in spirits examine it at more leisure but from neglect of the persons to whom it was entrusted the petals were destroyed by the only part that retained its being the pistil which was put in along with two large buds of the flower which I found attached to the root each of these is about as large two fists There were no leaves or branches this plant so that it is probable that stems bearing leaves issue forth at a different period of the year The soil this plant grew was very rich and with the excrement of elephants A guide from the interior of country said that such flowers were me but that he had seen several and that natives call them Krubut I have now nearly finished a drawing of it on as large drawing paper I could procure but it is still under the natural size and I propose to make another drawing of the pistil removed from the nectarium I have now I believe given you detailed an account of this prodigious plant as the subject admits of indeed it is all I know of it I would draw your attention however to the very great porosity of the root to which the buds are attached The specimens sent proved to be male and the drawing alluded to engraved for Mr Brown's paper is here copied Tab XIV together with sections showing the situation of the anthers and their structure The following is Mr Brown's generic character derived from the first specimens that were sent over Perianlhium mo nophyllum coloratum lubo ventricoso corona faucis annulari indivisa quinquepartito cequali Mas Columni inclusa limbo apicis reclinato subtus simplici serie polyandro disco processibus concentricis tecto Antherce sessiles subgloboss cellulosae poro apicis dehis centes Fem Some additional observations