What is the smallest flower in the world? Yet this flower is the largest in the world

There are many flowers in nature, with every kind of flower shape, size, color and blooming period imaginable, including aquatic, terrestrial and greenhouse types, and annual, biennial and perennial types, with an extremely large number of species and a wide range. So, what is the smallest flower in the world?

1. What is the smallest flower in the world?

1. The smallest flower in the world is Wolffia, also called watermeal, an aquatic plant of the duckweed family (Lemnaceae). It is the smallest in size among seed plants, resembling a grain of green fine sand, with no roots and no leaves. Its thallus is nearly spherical, about 1.3-1.5 mm long and less than 1 mm wide, and its flowers are small, born on the surface of the thallus.

2. Wolffia floats on the surface of still pools and marshes, tiny as sand. Its thallus is egg-shaped and hemispherical, single or two generations joined together, green and flat on top with many stomata, distinctly raised on the back and light green, with epidermal cells five- to six-sided, no leaf veins and no roots. Its flowers are small, monoecious, born on the surface of the thallus, without a spathe, and do not bloom often; the fruit is spherical.

3. Wolffia is an oval or egg-shaped green granular body floating on the water surface. It is widely distributed around the world and is produced throughout southeastern China, commonly seen in ponds or rice paddies in spring and summer; it is an excellent bait for young grass carp, common carp and other fish, and is also a feed that ducks and geese like to eat. The Dai people of Yunnan harvest it for vegetable food, and it can also be grown in fish tanks to beautify them.

4. Wolffia is simple to cultivate and high-yielding. It reproduces by budding, and its optimum growth temperature is 22-32°C. Below 20°C or above 35°C it grows slowly. From the beginning of budding to the seed separating from the parent is one reproductive cycle, lasting 3-4 hours at a water temperature of 30°C and 8-12 hours at 20°C.

2. What is the largest flower in the world?

1. The largest flower in the world is Rafflesia, also called the corpse flower or the man-eating flower. It is a fleshy parasitic herb of the Rafflesiaceae family and the plant with the largest flower in the world, enjoying the reputation of “king of flowers of the world”. Its flower diameter can reach 0.9144 m, with a record maximum of 1.4 m.

2. Rafflesia parasitizes the roots, stems or branches of plants. Its flower is usually solitary, with male and female flowers on separate plants. It has an extremely short main axis, no leaves and no underground stem, and its nutrient-absorbing organs are reduced to mycelium-like forms that invade the host's tissues. Therefore the whole flower is all there is of it, and the blooming Rafflesia is gorgeously colorful, with the entire corolla bright red and dotted with small white spots.

3. Rafflesia is native to the tropical rainforests of Malaysia and Java, Sumatra and other areas of Indonesia. It often parasitizes the root of the trailing stem or the lower climbing stem of vines of the genus Tetrastigma in the grape family under the leaf litter layer of tropical rainforests. It is famous for its huge flower and foul odor. It blooms only one flower in its lifetime, with a flowering period of only 4 days. In the early stage of the bud opening it has a fragrance, after which it gives off a pungent, putrid odor.

4. Rafflesia is very rare and is in serious danger of extinction. In 1984 the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources listed Rafflesia as a “plant endangered by the most serious threats worldwide”, and in 1997 the Sabah Wildlife Conservation Enactment was established, making Rafflesia a protected plant.

The above is an introduction to Wolffia, the smallest flower in the world, and Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world. We hope it is useful to everyone.