🧛🌱 Meet Hydnora africana, one of the strangest #plants on #Earth.

[tksst@fediscience.org]

🧛 Meet Hydnora africana, one of the strangest #plants on #Earth.

This South African parasite lives entirely underground until it’s time to #flower. When it does, it produces a fleshy, alien-looking bloom that smells like a carcass to lure in #beetles. It then traps the #insects in a slippery chamber, releasing them only after they’ve successfully moved its pollen around.

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/flowers/hydnora-africana-rotting-smell

#botany #nature #science #biology #southafrica #africa #evolution #ecology #stem #learning #education #wildlife