Rafflesia

If the player's town has enough weeds to generate the "worst" rating, a giant, smelly flower known as rafflesia may appear. The player can't remove it by picking it or digging it up. To completely remove a rafflesia, the player must pick all the weeds in the acre surrounding the plant. Right after removing the weeds, the plant will wilt.

When the town holds the lowest rating, the environmental report in the Civic Center will read: "This place is the pits! Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong! There's not a single thing I like in this town!" and Pelly will state "Hmm... You know, I think the problem is there are those gross flowers that keep showing up. You really have to work daily to prevent eyesores like that from sprouting." while Phyllis will comment "There must be a flower that smells terrible somewhere in town. Well, if that's the problem, maybe they should just stop planting them! (Come on, genius!)"

One minor good thing about a rafflesia is flies are usually nearby and easy to catch. This mimics the real life behavior of rafflesia, which emits the odor of rotting flesh to attract flies in order to pollinate. In City Folk and New Leaf, the rafflesia can be seen in the insect section of the museum. Once the fly is caught and donated to Blathers, it will be seen flying around the plant.

In New Leaf, rafflesias have different spawning conditions. A rafflesia can only spawn in underdeveloped towns and is no statement about the cleanliness of a town. The town has to have less than three Public Works Projects (permanent ones count as well) and a low number of trees. Only one rafflesia can spawn at a time. Against popular belief, weeds, trash, lack of flowers, time traveling, town rating and town ordinance aren't involved in the spawning process. Therefore, plucking all weeds and/or removing all items from the ground won't get rid of a rafflesia. However, planting more trees and/or building more Public Works Projects will. As soon as these conditions are met, the rafflesia will appear wilted on the next day and entirely disappear on the day after that.

Further Information[]

Main article: Rafflesia on Wikipedia

The rafflesia belongs to the family of parasitic flowering plants. The flower that can reach up to one meter in diameter and weigh ten kilograms, making it the largest flower alive. It can be found in the Philippines and in Indonesia, specifically in the island of Kalimantan and Sumatra. It is parasitic in the fact that it lacks any observable leaves, stems or even roots, so it has to inhabit spaces on a plant host and collect nutrients from it. The rafflesia is also known as "the corpse flower" or "meat flower" because it emits a very foul odor, which attracts flies that pollinate it. It also takes a very long time to grow: it takes nine months for the bud to turn into the flower, but the flower only lasts 10–20 days.

Trivia[]

A rafflesia is the opposite of Jacob's ladder. Both plants appear due to town conditions.
In New Leaf, the rafflesia is harder to remove.
- However, a rafflesia can be removed by placing a Public Works Project over it.