''Rafflesia speciosa'' is a

parasitic plant A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All Parasite, parasitic plants develop a specialized organ ...

species of the genus ''

Rafflesia ''Rafflesia'' (), or stinking corpse lily, is a genus of Parasitic plants, parasitic flowering plants in the family Rafflesiaceae. The species have enormous flowers, the buds rising from the ground or directly from the lower stems of their host p ...

''. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the

Philippine The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

Panay Panay is the sixth-largest and fourth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of and a total population of 4,542,926, as of 2020 census. Panay comprises 4.4 percent of the entire population of the country. The City of Il ...

. ''R. speciosa'' is the third ''

'' species documented to exist in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, after '' R. manillana'' and '' R. schadenbergiana''. It belongs to the medium-sized ''Rafflesia'' (Meijer, 1997). The species was named by Julie Barcelona and Edwino Fernando. ''Rafflesia speciosa'' was discovered in the mountains of

Sibalom Natural Park Sibalom Natural Park is a protected area in the Philippines on the island of Panay in the municipality of Sibalom, Antique. It was proclaimed a natural park on 23 April 2000. It is considered one of the last remaining lowland rainforests on P ...

(particularly Mount Porras) in

Antique An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that i ...

by members of an outdoor club. It was adopted as the symbol of Sibalom Natural Park and the municipality of

Sibalom Sibalom, officially the Municipality of Sibalom, (; ; ), is a municipality in the province of Antique, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 63,833 people. Thus, making it a suburb of San Jose (the provincial capi ...

. For more information, see the review of Philippine ''Rafflesia''.

References

External links

Parasitic Plant Connection: ''Rafflesia speciosa'' page
speciosa Endemic flora of the Philippines Flora of the Visayas Plants described in 2002 Taxa named by Julie F. Barcelona {{Malpighiales-stub