Watching the Paradise Plants in "Cibodas Botanical Garden"

Cibodas Botanical Garden is like a paradise on earth which implies the beautiful scenery in the garden located at the foot of Mount Gede Pangrango, West Java. This botanical garden was established on April 11, 1852 by a curator of this gardens, Johannes Ellias Teijsmann.

Originally named Bergtuin te Tjibodas (Cibodas Garden Mountains), not just paradise for its beauty, Cibodas Botanical Garden is a haven for scientists to uncover the knowledge of the various phenomena in the natural vegetation.

The age of Cibodas Botanical Gardens located in Cipanas, Cianjur regency, West Java has reached 159 years with an sharply increasing tourist arrivals during the year of 2011, in addition to visiting local tourist also come from European countries, America and even Australia.

Various locations offer the beauty of this botanical garden, thematic parks, such as cherry blossom, ferns, moss, or corpse or carrion flower. Collection of 235 types of moss in Cibodas Moss Park which is maintained outside the room more interesting than the moss park indoor location in Germany and Singapore, as well as approximately 395 cherry trees brought from the Himalayas that is able to grow well.

Cibodas Botanical Garden is designed to be the location of the climate adjustment productive plants that imported from another country, one of the most famous is the introduction and domestication quinine tree (Cinchona calisaya).

Rafflesia Rochussenii flower is one of the collections in this botanical garden that blooms for the first time in July, with a diameter of 12 cm and a height of about 4 cm. Rafflesia Rochussennii flower is actually a native and endemic species of West Java, growing at an altitude of 700-1400 meters above sea level, living in a damp forest floor and vegetation dominated by Fagaceae.

Rafflesia rochussenii have a smaller size than other species that grow in the forests of Sumatra island, namely Rafflesia arnoldi and Rafflesia patma, although they are came in the same genus plants. Scattered in the forest of Mount Gede, Mount Pangrango, until it reaches the region of Mount Salak, South Bandung, Garut and Pelabuhan Ratu.

If you're lucky when you visit this botanical garden, as a tourists can watch corpse flower (Amorphopallus titanum) which grows and bloom in May 2011.

Corpse or carrion flowers that have three phases of their growth, vegetative (leafy), generative (flowering) and dormant (resting) - flowered once every four years. Of course, if has the time to visit, this flower will bloom again in May 2015, a special moment that is always eagerly awaited.

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(Source Kompas, National Geographic /Images Eka D.and H. Wiriadinata)