The Rafflesia in the Natural and Imperial Imagination of the East India Company in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Rafflesia is a genus of plants that is among the largest parasitic flowers in the world; the number of species of the plant is disputed but most likely is between fifteen and twenty. They are only found in Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and southern Philippines. The plant is not only unique due to its size, but also its parasitic nature and appearance. The only visible part of the plant is the flower; there are no stems, roots or leaves. The Rafflesia is connected to its host, the Tetrastigma (a genus of the grape family) vine, via fine microscopic threads. In addition, it is a slow growing plant. Tissue threads of the Rafflesia will spread in the vine for up to eighteen months before a bud appears. This bud then takes up to nine months to bloom.1 Since coming to the attention of European scholars/explorers in the late eighteenth century, the collection — or even sighting — of the flower has come to be the goal of a number of scientific expeditions, which is reflected in it depiction in local literature, botanical gardens, natural history museums and scientific classification pamphlets. The origin of much of this fascination contains many interconnecting threads, much like the microscopic ones that connect the Rafflesia to its host. It involves the network of ideas and understandings that the English East India Company (EIC) promoted throughout the world through it personnel, trade and related scientific societies that were related to the natural world and its classification.