Rafflesia tuan-mudae
Content
Distribution
Gading present, Mts Pueh present, Rara present
Malesia: W Sarawak (Mts Pueh, Gading, Rara).
Notes
Beccari and Solms-Laubach did not have a sharp concept of this entity. Beccari himself reduced his species to R. arnoldii Brown but later on left it to Solms-Laubach (l.c. 1891) to revive it, mainly based on the smaller size of the flowers and fewer blots across the perigone lobes.
Coomans de Ruiter collected Rafflesia in SW Borneo, later in Bogor identified as R. tuan-mudae, but the flowers illustrated by him are good matches of R. arnoldii. However, the smaller form described by Beccari was later also found on Mt Rara by Dr. J. Mogea (BO) and Dr. W. J. J.O. de Wilde (L). So it now appears to be a form restricted to three isolated mountains. As a widespread species R. arnoldii has greater variability in size and form than some species with smaller areas.