Pathless Forest by Chris Thorogood

Pathless Forest

By Christ Thorogood

This book is my pick from Hay Festival this year. I loved listening to Christ Thorogood who talked with such passion about his obsessive love for the Rafflesia or Stinking Corpse Lily!

 

Known as the ‘Indiana Jones’ of the plant world, this botanist and academic has travelled through the tropical rainforests of the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, in search of this illusive species which grows in the depths of the jungle. At times he has travelled for days to find his beloved Rafflesia, only to arrive too late and the plant had already flowered

This enormous flower, measuring up to 100 cm in diameter and weighing up to 10 kilos, is actually a parasite, and it mimics the odour and appearance of rotting flesh to attract its favoured carrion fly pollinators, with a scent described as having notes of ‘sewage’ and ‘off chicken’

This plant refuses to be cultivated in botanical gardens and the only institution to successfully graft it onto a host vine and coax it into bloom is the Bogor Botanical Gardens, near Jakarta. Otherwise you will need a machete and a guide and be ready to head off into the depths of the jungle to find it. With deforestation the Rafflesia is now at severe risk of extinction. In a race against time, Thorogood is trying to document this species in the wild

The book is a great read and is beautifully illustrated by Thorogood, who is a talented botanical artist

Candida Hopkinson