Rafflesia Arnoldi

I looked in vain for a correction concerning the pictures accompanying the Oct. 3 environment feature. These pictures were of an Amorphophallus in Kebun Raya Bogor. I saw it some years ago. You can in fact see parts of the name on the labels in the second photo, and the second half of the name is easy to remember for anybody with a smattering of Greek, as it refers to the central protrusion.

Rafflesia Arnoldi appears to be the subject of your article, and it is also the emblem of Bengkulu. It is frequently portrayed here in luridly painted concrete. Seeing it this way, the stench is of course not apparent. It has more of the aspects of a yoni than of a lingam. It was certainly interesting to read that it is found in Borneo, since I had assumed it was unique to Bukit Barisan. Since this Rafflesia is only one of several plants in the family Rafflesiaceae, I would be interested to know whether the Amorphophallus is another member of the same extraordinary family.

Raffles himself was far more important as a botanist and governor of Java during Napoleon's invasion of Holland, and later as governor of what used to be known as Bencoolen, than as one of the several founders of Singapore. He is well remembered here, and I was surprised and gratified to find that my (Indonesian) office manager has a collection of memoirs about Raffles and his times which were written in both Dutch and English. Raffles' botanical efforts related in the first instance to the search for commercially exploitable species, but his concern for the ecology and diverse peoples of the archipelago is an example to latter day imperialists.

EDWARD S. WEBBER

Bengkulu