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flower opens, it attracts beetles with its sweet pineapple-like odor. The beetles enter the plant and transfer pollen to the stigma, fertilizing it. This event occurs over a one-day period while the flower shuts and traps the beetles inside it. The very next day the giant water lily changes color (from white to purplish red) and changes from a female to a male! It opens up on the second evening after changing color and no longer emits a pineapple-like scent. The beetle leaves the plant covered with new pollen and flies off to enter another white flower to repeat the process all over again. At the end of forty-eight hours, the flower closes and sinks down below the water’s surface. Borneo Rainforest Plants and Trees The largest forested landmass in Asia is thought to be about 130 million years old (even older than the AmazonJungle). Thereareanestimated three thousand tree species and more than fifteen thousand species of flowering plants, many of which are unique, in the jungles of Borneo.

Vanilla

Did you know that vanilla originally came from orchids that grew in the jungles of Mexico and Guatemala? The vanilla orchid grows on a 30-foot (9.14 meters) vine that climbs up trees. The part that is used tomake vanilla is the pod, or bean, which is opened and scraped to collect thousands of tiny black seeds. These beans are thenmashedandmixed with alcohol and water to make vanilla extract. Because this process is expensive, most people today use imitation vanilla flavoring. But imitation flavor will never compare to the sweet-scented pods that helped vanilla win its place as the world’s most popular flavor!

14 INTO THE WORLD’S AMAZING JUNGLES: JUNGLE BUGS & VEGETATION