The biggest flower smells of rotting meat

In the jungles of Sumatra and Borneo grows the rafflesia, the largest single flower in the world: it can measure close to a metre across and weigh several kilos. And it doesn't exactly smell of jasmine, but of rotting flesh.

The stench isn't a flaw, it's the plan. With that smell it mimics a dead animal and fools flies, which turn up in droves thinking they're heading to a feast and, in passing, pollinate it.

The strangest thing is that the plant barely exists outside the flower. It has no leaves, no stem, no visible roots: it lives as a parasite tucked inside a vine, and only emerges into the world to bloom.

A plant that spends its life hidden inside another and, when it finally comes out, does so as the biggest and foulest-smelling flower on the planet.