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Pathless Forest: The Quest to Save the World’s Largest Flowers
The incredible story of one man's obsession to find and protect the world's largest flowers
As a child, Chris Thorogood dreamed of seeing Rafflesia - the plant with the world's largest flowers. He crafted life-size replicas in an abandoned cemetery, carefully bringing them to life with paper and paint. Today he is a botanist at the University of Oxford's Botanic Garden and has dedicated his life to studying the biology of such extraordinary plants, working alongside botanists and foresters in Southeast Asia to document these huge, mysterious blooms.
Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant - a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them. We join him on a mind-bending adventure, as he faces a seemingly impenetrable barrier of weird, wonderful and sometimes fearsome flora; finds himself smacking off leeches, hanging off vines, wading through rivers; and following indigenous tribes into remote, untrodden rainforests in search of Rafflesia's ghostly, foul-smelling blooms, more than a metre across.
We depend on plants for our very existence, but two in five of the world's species are threatened with extinction - nobody knows how many species of Rafflesia might already have disappeared through deforestation. Pathless Forest is part thrilling adventure story and part an inspirational call to action to safeguard a fast-disappearing wilderness. To view plants in a different way, as vital for our own future as for that of the planet we share. And to see if Rafflesia itself can be saved.
As a child, Chris Thorogood dreamed of seeing Rafflesia - the plant with the world's largest flowers. He crafted life-size replicas in an abandoned cemetery, carefully bringing them to life with paper and paint. Today he is a botanist at the University of Oxford's Botanic Garden and has dedicated his life to studying the biology of such extraordinary plants, working alongside botanists and foresters in Southeast Asia to document these huge, mysterious blooms.
Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant - a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them. We join him on a mind-bending adventure, as he faces a seemingly impenetrable barrier of weird, wonderful and sometimes fearsome flora; finds himself smacking off leeches, hanging off vines, wading through rivers; and following indigenous tribes into remote, untrodden rainforests in search of Rafflesia's ghostly, foul-smelling blooms, more than a metre across.
We depend on plants for our very existence, but two in five of the world's species are threatened with extinction - nobody knows how many species of Rafflesia might already have disappeared through deforestation. Pathless Forest is part thrilling adventure story and part an inspirational call to action to safeguard a fast-disappearing wilderness. To view plants in a different way, as vital for our own future as for that of the planet we share. And to see if Rafflesia itself can be saved.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 7, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 3, 2025
A fascinating travelogue by the author as he goes around Southeast Asia looking for a remarkable group of plants: genus Rafflesia.
Rafflesia is a parasitic plant that only grows inside a group of vines, drawing nourishment from its host. But when it blooms, it produces the largest flower in the world, up to a metre across, and emits a smell of decay to attract its pollinators, mainly flies. The author has been fascinated by Rafflesia since childhood, and this journey will give him the opportunity to see various species of Rafflesia in the wild.
But the journey would not be easy. The author would journey through the Philippines and Indonesia with his local guides, consulting local tribes who know the forest. This knowledge is vital, for Rafflesia only blooms for a short while, and the author is initially frustrated, finding only unopened or already decaying flowers. But eventually the searches pay off, and they get to see (and smell) Rafflesia in full bloom.
In between the journeys, the author gives various biology lessons on Rafflesia and other plants he has searched for and seen. One part looks at efforts to try to propagate Rafflesia by human means (their seeds cannot be preserved and grown) by grafting them on to new vines. So far, only one person has managed to do this and the author visits him to try to learn how to do it.
During the journey, the author also describes various other plants seen during their journeys (some plant families mentioned in the book are familiar to me). But he also laments the destruction of the forests that he sees as he goes from place to place: at one point, he describes a whole group of brown hills in the Philippines, complete denuded of forests.
But he ends the book on a hopeful note as he talks to local people dedicated to protecting their forests and, possibly, help him keep Rafflesia and other plants alive.
Rafflesia is a parasitic plant that only grows inside a group of vines, drawing nourishment from its host. But when it blooms, it produces the largest flower in the world, up to a metre across, and emits a smell of decay to attract its pollinators, mainly flies. The author has been fascinated by Rafflesia since childhood, and this journey will give him the opportunity to see various species of Rafflesia in the wild.
But the journey would not be easy. The author would journey through the Philippines and Indonesia with his local guides, consulting local tribes who know the forest. This knowledge is vital, for Rafflesia only blooms for a short while, and the author is initially frustrated, finding only unopened or already decaying flowers. But eventually the searches pay off, and they get to see (and smell) Rafflesia in full bloom.
In between the journeys, the author gives various biology lessons on Rafflesia and other plants he has searched for and seen. One part looks at efforts to try to propagate Rafflesia by human means (their seeds cannot be preserved and grown) by grafting them on to new vines. So far, only one person has managed to do this and the author visits him to try to learn how to do it.
During the journey, the author also describes various other plants seen during their journeys (some plant families mentioned in the book are familiar to me). But he also laments the destruction of the forests that he sees as he goes from place to place: at one point, he describes a whole group of brown hills in the Philippines, complete denuded of forests.
But he ends the book on a hopeful note as he talks to local people dedicated to protecting their forests and, possibly, help him keep Rafflesia and other plants alive.
July 14, 2025
I saw this book on a trip to Kew Gardens, and was interested enough to get a sample on kindle - which I forgot about.
As it's been so hot, I was trawling through my kindle looking for something to read, and stumbled across the sample. Which I read, and promptly ordered the book.
I'll be honest, if you're not into gardening / exotic plants, it's not going to be the sort of book that you're going to enjoy. But, if like me, you love exotic plants, then this is the book for you. Chris starts by telling a tale about his childhood and how he fell in love with Rafflesia and how he made a model of the large flower.
The book then goes in to tell the story of his trip to the Philippines and Indonesia in search of the wild species of Rafflesia as well as little side trips about other plants.
It finished a little abruptly, but it was a good book - one that I enjoyed all the more as I have recently been to the Oxford University's botanical garden, so could visualize the glasshouses that he was writing about - especially the one that houses the Amazonian Waterlilly (Victoria amazonica)
As it's been so hot, I was trawling through my kindle looking for something to read, and stumbled across the sample. Which I read, and promptly ordered the book.
I'll be honest, if you're not into gardening / exotic plants, it's not going to be the sort of book that you're going to enjoy. But, if like me, you love exotic plants, then this is the book for you. Chris starts by telling a tale about his childhood and how he fell in love with Rafflesia and how he made a model of the large flower.
The book then goes in to tell the story of his trip to the Philippines and Indonesia in search of the wild species of Rafflesia as well as little side trips about other plants.
It finished a little abruptly, but it was a good book - one that I enjoyed all the more as I have recently been to the Oxford University's botanical garden, so could visualize the glasshouses that he was writing about - especially the one that houses the Amazonian Waterlilly (Victoria amazonica)
June 17, 2024
Enthralling
Though this book is predominantly about botany Chris has imbued a spiritual aspect to it which is beautiful and touching.The language is excellent and this beautifully penned book brings to life the secret life of Rafflesia, a larger than life flower.
Though this book is predominantly about botany Chris has imbued a spiritual aspect to it which is beautiful and touching.The language is excellent and this beautifully penned book brings to life the secret life of Rafflesia, a larger than life flower.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews