Rafflesia is a very strange flower: it has no petals or leaves, but it doesn't need any. It feeds on other plants instead.

It blooms just once every five years, and when fully blossomed it is the largest flower in the world at over 3 feet across!

When the Rafflesia blooms, it unleashes an unholy odor, just like rotting flesh. Hence the name: Corpse Flower.

It even looks like a carcass: its lumpy and mottled surface, and tough skin is intentionally un-flower-like.

Why would a flower do this? The same reason other flowers look and smell the way they do: they want to get pollinated!

Carrion flies lay their eggs on dead meat, so the plant mimics a corpse and deposits pollen on every fly that visits.

The flower has a day or so to be fertilized before withering, and it will be years until this strange cycle begins again...