About this episode

The episode explores how plants have evolved to attract insects for pollination, featuring a quest for the rare Rafflesia flower.

Many plants need pollen from another plant of the same species in order to reproduce, but they don’t have legs so they can’t simply walk around looking for a mate. As a result, many of them rely on animals to transfer pollen from one plant to another. They’ve developed a hugely diverse range of techniques to attract them, including their appearance, taste and smell. CrowdScience listener Alice in the UK wants to know how they have evolved to do this. To try and answer the question, presenter Anand Jagatia goes trekking up a mountain in the Philippines, battling mud and leeches in the hunt for an incredibly rare flower. Rafflesia has evolved to look and smell like rotting meat in order to attract flies, so it’s the perfect example of a plant that goes to fascinating extremes to make sure it gets pollinated. It only blooms for a few days each year, so to find it Anand is going to need the help of scientists at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and Lewis Barrett, Senior Botanical Propagator at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum. Anand also visits the University of the Philippines Laguna Quezon Land Grant, a huge site containing more than 5,500 hectares…

People in this episode

Host: Anand Jagatia

Topics covered

• plant evolution
• insect pollination
• Rafflesia flower
• botany
• ecology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of the Philippines Los Baños, University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, University of the Philippines Laguna Quezon Land Grant

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