Mother Nature has a wonderfully rich imagination - just look at some representatives of the flora to be convinced of this. Today we will consider the most unusual, and even strange, flowers in the world.
Amorphophallus titanic
A flower with a long and intricate name has one of the world's largest flora of inflorescences. He was discovered in Sumatra in 1878 by an Italian botanist and traveler Odoardo Beccari. Unfortunately, in the homeland the plant is destroyed and, now it can be seen only in the botanical gardens and large greenhouses. 
On a short and thick pedicel, an unusual inflorescence rises: a yellow cone-shaped cob rises above the bowl in the form of a bell turned upside down. In amorphophallus titanic cob reaches a height of four meters. The cup is formed by a leaf-shaped blanket, the structure of which resembles a corrugated paper in appearance. The inner side of the coverlet has a burgundy-purple hue, the outer side is light green, closer to the pedicel is spotty. 
Despite the external beauty of a long time to be near the flowering plant is impossible, it exudes the smell of "well-aged" meat or fish. The flowering period lasts a few days, in his entire life, which is about forty years, amorphofallus blooms only three or four times.
Read also about growing amorphophallus at home.
Lady's slipper
The lady's slipper (Cypripedium calceolus) has a large area of distribution - this is all of Europe, including the British Peninsula, Russia, and Asian countries. 
Herbaceous perennial short stature, the highest species reaches 60 cm. Its stems are covered with soft thin villi. At the base large leaves are collected, also fleecy from the underside, the leaves are bright green in color, up to 20 cm long, and up to 8 cm wide. The sheet plate is traced with longitudinal streaks. 
The inflorescence is usually single-flowered, located on a curved short pedicle with a leaf-shaped, pointed bract at the end.
Did you know? Yellow image of a venereal slipper on a blue background - this is the coat of arms of the Norwegian commune of Demolition.
The structure of the inflorescence looks unusual: the lip in the form of a rounded shoe sock is bright yellow (sometimes with red tinges), the flap over the lip (staminodia) and the stamens hiding in the shoe are also yellow. 
The lip is surrounded by four petals of red-brown color, the upper one, called a sail, is the widest of them, the lower one is narrower, and the lateral ones are narrow and curled into a spiral. When blooming, the slipper forms a seed box.
Learn more about veneer shoes: species (Paphiopedilum, Cypripedium), care tips, growing in pots.
Wolfia
Consider the detailed structure of this water plant without a microscope is difficult. Wolffia, popularly - duckweed, is similar to yellow or green microscopic plates, its dimensions are about 1 mm. This is a thermophilic plant and it is distributed mostly in subtropical reservoirs, extracting all the necessary substances for life from water. 
In our area, one species of wolfthia is known - rootless. It is often used to create natural shade in aquariums, as fish food. 
African gidnor
The appearance of this plant resembles the open mouth of a predatory reptile. On the very surface of the earth on a short pedicle there is an egg-shaped bud. It is covered with a gray-brown warty skin. Opening, the bud exposes a bright red inside, exuding smell of rot. The smell attracts insects that have time to pollinate the gidnor before she dines with them. When the plant is already old and begins to decompose, withering away, in its bud the insects lay larvae. 
It is noteworthy that the surface for flowering hydor is chosen only with sufficient precipitation. The rest of the time it is under the ground, surviving due to parasitism on the roots of other plants. Distributed in Africa and the island of Madagascar.
Japanese camellia
In Japan and China, camellia can be seen in every garden at the temple. This is an evergreen shrub with bright white or pink-red flowers. Strong shoots of gray-brown color covered with bright dark green leaves, glossy, leathery. 
An inflorescence, full and lush, with clearly sculpted petals attracts attention, it seems artificial: wax or paper, satin. 
In its natural habitat, shrub lives in East Asia, Korea, the Philippines and Java.
Read also about the types and cultivation of Camellia: in the garden and in a pot; tree care camellia.
Nepentes Attenborough
Nepentes Attenborough is named after Air Force journalist David Attenborough, it is the largest among its kind. Recently discovered, due to lost travelers on the Philippine island of Palawan. 
Nepentes grows like a vine, can curl along tree trunks, and pitcher-jugs hang from the tendrils, located at the ends of the leaves, all the way to the ground. The top sheet of nepentes plays the role of a lid; on its inner side, nectar is released from the glands, which attracts insects and small mammals. 
The pitcher, into which the victims slide, holds about two liters of liquid. At the bottom is a layer of plant digestive juice, and at the top is a layer of water. The edging of the jug is often ribbed with spikes protruding inward. Color nepentes brown-red-orange.
Learn how to care for nepenthes at home.
Orchid Calania
Orchid, which is also called the flying duck, is growing in Australia, more precisely - on the coastal strip in the south of the country, there is also on the island of Tasmania. An unusual specimen blooms in September and blooms, depending on the area, until January or February. 
A thin and flexible stem, colored red and green, grows no higher than half a meter; on the stem there is a single leaf of elongated shape, less than a centimeter wide. On the peduncle can be placed up to four flowers with a diameter of 2 cm. 
A bowl turned upside down with two stipules — dark burgundy or purple; stipules — green. A curved petal with a convex lip of a juicy purple hue is located on the bowl. From the lip comes a yellowish nose, and complements the resemblance to a flying duck pair of spiral-twisted narrow petals, protruding upwards like wings.
Did you know? In addition to the similarity with the bird, this form of a waving flower is similar to the female pergidae from the family of sawflies. Males of the beetle, being deceived by their similarity and falling on a flower, transfer pollen from an orchid to an orchid.
Monkey Orchid
Orchid's birthplace is South America, where it grows at an altitude of up to two thousand meters above sea level. This plant is simply woven from the unusual - the second name of the flower is the orchid Dracula, apparently with a hint of the pointed ends of the petals resembling the ghoul fangs; An open flower looks like a monkey's face, and it smells like oranges. 
These are low plants with straight stems and peduncles. Each flower bearing one flower with three petals, forming a bowl. At the ends of the petals are formed sharp, curled up tails. Foliage in species is different: it can be elongated and flat or dense, spongy structure. The color of petals in species varies - it can be light yellow, brown, brown-violet, red-brown. 
The orchid is sexy
Orchid got its name for several reasons. It blooms in the wasp's mating season, and the flower with its forms resembles an insect female. Moreover, it also releases substances similar to the pheromones of the female wasp. Deceived males in vain attempts to mate with a friend are smeared in the pollen of the plant, thus helping to pollinate the latter. 
This is an Australian plant, up to 35 centimeters high, with a thin stem and a single heart-shaped leaf. The base of the sheet tightly wraps the stem, the color of the plate is gray-gray, with dark longitudinal veins. 
The flowering period is in August-September. The inflorescence on a thickened bright green pedicle has an elongated shape, the lip is dark purple in color, and the staminodia (sterile stamen) are located on the upper sepal. Side and lower petals are directed downwards, imitating insect paws.
Check out other orchid species: dendrobium, miltonia, cymbidium, cattleya.
Bees bearing
The bee-bearing ofris also enjoys its unusually realistic resemblance to a female insect. Its inflorescence form repeats the contours of the bee's body. The dark brown lip, covered with a short velvety pile with a yellow border, imitates the abdomen of a female bee. The green color of the sepals in the shape of an inverted bowl resembles a bee's head. Under it is a bright yellow, twisted at the base of the ovary. Lilac-lilac outer petals (from three to five pieces) are bent back. 
Perennial grows up to half a meter, prefers a warmer climate: the Black Sea coast, the Mediterranean countries, the warm slopes of the Caucasus. Ofris blooms at the end of May, attracting by its appearance the male bees, which spread its pollen.
Important! Offes bee-bearing is on the verge of extinction, is listed among the plants protected by the Red Book of Russia.
Passionflower
More than 500 species of passionflower are known and described, most of them grow in the tropics of South America, Australia, Asia, also in Madagascar, in the Mediterranean and in the subtropics of Transcaucasia. 
Species may differ in color of petals, but the structure of the inflorescence is the same for all. On a long thin pedicle, there is a flower with a diameter of about 10 cm. Sepals and outer petals, practically do not differ from each other, are colored the same: red, white, blue, pink, can be two-colored, spotty. Above them rises the crown, formed by a multitude of thin coronary filaments. The next circle consists of five stamens, in the center - three stigmas of the pistil. 
Shrub Passiflora (some species) fruits. Edible fruits are known as passion fruit.
Did you know? In Russian, the name of the flower sounds - passionflower. When, in 1610, the image of passiflora came across to the historian and true Catholic, Giacomo Bossio, he saw in the structure of the flower the embodiment of the Passion of Christ. The similarity impressed the great Heinrich Heine, who described the passionflower in a poetic form, as the personification of the agony of Jesus.
Sublime Psychotria
She lives in Central and South America, on the Pacific Islands. It is on the verge of extinction due to intensive deforestation in these regions. 
Shrub with a spreading crown, flexible green, lignified as it grows old, shoots, leafy. The leaves are large, oval-shaped, tapered closer to the petiole, light green or dark green. 
Inflorescence with a diameter of up to five centimeters has modified perianth in the form of very plump red lips. In the period of flowering in the center of the opened perianths, small five-petal white flowers are blooming. Later, they form the ovaries and oval fruits of bright blue hue.
Tacca Chantrier
An exotic plant in nature is common in the tropical jungles of southern China, Burma, Myanmar, and Thailand. Outwardly blooming inflorescence looks more like an elaborate brooch than a flower. 
A distinctive feature is the ability to bloom up to eight times per season. Large, up to 35 centimeters, flowers are painted in dark colors: purple, bronze-brown, ink colors, dark burgundy. One pedicle can carry up to twelve flowers. 
Tricyrtis short-haired
Belonging to the family of lily tricyrtis is a resident of the Japanese subtropics. Semishrub grows in breadth, its stems - less than a meter in height. Thin light green stem covered with a short nap. 
The flowering period occurs at the end of summer-beginning of autumn. In the leafy sinuses appear one to three flowers. The inflorescence consists of three sharp, tongue-shaped and three rounded, white petals with colored spots about three centimeters long. Spots can be purple, dark lilac, purple. The center of the flower is white with yellow spots, and staminate filaments and pistils, painted in the same way as the petals, rise above it. It is noteworthy that even the underside of the petals is pubescent in tricyrthis.
Trichozant
Grassy vine live under natural conditions in the tropics and subtropics. The plant bears fruit, it eats long fruits, leaves and antennae. In culture grown in the countries of Southeast Asia, China, Australia, India, in greenhouse conditions are cultivated in our latitudes, in the southern regions. 
Trichozant blooms with bisexual flowers, female individuals - one by one on the pedicel, male - by brush. Inflorescences are like snowflakes cut from paper. Five snow-white petals along the edge are trimmed with the thinnest curlicues.
Rafflesia
The parasite plant lives in the body of the selected host, most often it is creepers, grows on the islands of Java, the Philippines, Sumatra, Kalimantan and the Malay peninsula.
According to botanists, rafflesia grows into the roots of the host plant, clinging to them with its own root processes with suckers. Then, using organs that resemble mushroom spores, penetrates further through the body, consuming all the substances it needs. 
The plant has a very slow development cycle: it takes up to three years from spore penetration and sowing of seeds to bud formation. It can take a bud between 9 and 18 months to open. The flowering period with no more than four days. After it - a long period of decomposition, the formation of the ovary and about seven months in the formation of the fetus. 
Flowers of some types of rafflesia can reach over a meter in diameter and weigh about ten kilograms. To attract pollinators, it exudes the smell of rotting meat, and for this, and for its unattractive appearance, it was called a cadaveric lily.
Sundew
Sundew is a perennial herbaceous carnivorous plant. It has many species, distributed from Australia to the Far East. It can grow on any soil, replenishing their poor nutrition with substances derived from catching and digesting insects. 
Flowering can be observed at the beginning or at the end of summer, depending on the species. Flowers are usually small and inconspicuous, five-petalled, usually cone-shaped. Interest is not flowers, but leaves, round or elongated, covered with a long nap. Villi through glands secrete sticky droplets that attract insects. When a fly or a beetle sits on a leaf, its edges either slam or curl around the victim.
Read also about the types and cultivation of sundews.
Strongylodon
A large liana with a woody stalk up to twenty meters in length and more belongs to the legume family. Philippines is the birthplace of vines. 
It blooms huge tassels up to a meter long, consisting of inflorescences of turquoise hue. The shape of the inflorescence is similar to the open bird's beak: the top petal is folded up, it has a smoothly pointed tip and tucked inside the edge. The lower petal is in the form of a sharp claw, bent upwards. 
The most remarkable thing that pollinogilodon pollinate are not insects, but bats.
Hirantodendron
Growing on the mountain slopes of Mexico and Guatemala to a height of three thousand meters above sea level, the chiratodendron is represented by one species, called the five-fingered. This fast-growing tree reaches a height of thirty meters and two meters in the trunk. 
During the flowering period, five-leafed, leathery, dense boxes of yellow-red color are formed, with an edge from the outside. In their center flowers bloom with five thin bright red petals accrete at the base and slightly bent above. For its resemblance to the human brush, the tree was called the "hand of the devil."
Parrot flower
Belonging to the Balsam family, it is so rare that it doubted the authenticity of the photographs for a long time, but after its discovery and appearance in the royal botanical garden of Thailand, doubts disappeared. 
Semi-shrub plant with dense brown-green shoots and carved, triangular in shape, light green foliage. The pedicle formed in the axils of the leaves, thin and long, the flower hanging on it seems soaring in the air. The inflorescence is in the shape of an elongated bowl, narrowed at one end, resembling the head of a bird, has a green tail-beak at the end. 
The middle part conveys the shape of a bird's body with folded wings, and the elongated, dissected continuation of the lower lobe looks like a tail. The bright color of several shades of pink and white enhances the similarity with the parrot.
Orchis Italian
This species of orchid lives in the countries of central and southern Europe, Africa, and southern Asia. This is a herbaceous plant with a thick light green stem, and a pair of long leaves gathered in a rosette wrapped around the stem. 
Flowering period from June to August. At the end of the stem a pyramidal inflorescence is formed, consisting of many buds. In the closed form, drop-shaped buds, pointed at the end, light pink, may have stripes or darker spots. Opening, the flower becomes like a human figure hiding under a canopy.
Northern orchid, as the orchid is sometimes called, is loved not only for its decorative properties. The root of the flower found its use in traditional and traditional medicine, cooking.
Orchis monkey
Ятрышник обезьяний растёт на территории всего юга и запада Европы, в Иране, Крыму, на Кавказе. Травянистый ятрышник обладает крепким облиственным у основания стеблем. Зацветает растение в конце апреля-начале мая. 
Inflorescences form a dense panicle, consisting of a large number of light lilac buds. Blooming, the bud lowers the lower petal, which is similar to the figure of a monkey with a smiling snout.
Important! The roots of the plant have many medicinal properties and are used as raw materials in pharmacology. But growing it for these purposes on special plantations, digging up a plant in nature is strictly prohibited - it is protected by the Red Book.
Video: the most unusual flowers
Many interesting plants in nature, especially in its secluded corners, it is impossible to describe everything. Some of them will cause admiration, others - bewilderment, and still others - disgust at all, but these works of nature will not leave anyone indifferent.
