In Sabah and Sarawak, also reported from highland areas Seven out of fifteen species worldwide of Rafflesia can be found in Malaysia. The Rafflesia is a disembodied flower. A rootless, leafless and stemless parasite, it drains nourishment and gains physical support from its host vine. Its only body outside the flower consists of strands of fungus-like tissue that grow inside the Tetrastigma vine. It first manifests itself as a tiny bud on the vine's stem.
Beauty turns beastly in only a few days.
The Rafflesia only flowers for 5 to 6 days, before the petals blacken and the flower withers. Threats Most species are highly localised and are therefore vulnerable to extinction because of habitat disturbance and host cutting from activities such as land clearing, logging, and ethnobotanical collecting. The first two activities are important in threatening the Bornean species, while in the peninsular over-collecting by local people who sell the buds for medicine is apparently the greatest threat. Conservation Because of its rarity, knowledge of the biology and ecology of Rafflesia has been slow to accumulate. Even today, little is known about its reproductive biology and distribution, which in itself poses many problems for its conservation.