so, giant flowers.

giant flowers,big enough to compete with a mountain as a country landmark; how would there petals hold under their own weight?

i was going with various real world inspired flower shapes depending on the region it is located in, but if there was a flower this big, what kind of shape do you suppose it would be.

if one of these died, what would that much decomposing plant matter do to the environment.

minimal hand waving please, ill decide what to handwave once i have enough information/inspiration, that's the point of asking these questions.

also flower people were born of these,but that will wait for another time, when i have gathered my thoughts for a decent question.

edited 12th Jan '15 2:42:11 PM by zoraxbrooks

Short answer: They wouldn't hold up.

Longer answer: No known form of plant matter would be strong enough for what you want there. Your best bet is A Wizard Did It. Or super-advanced nanotechnology, which amounts to the same thing, really.

Well then, seeing as the petals would lie flat on the ground and are quite big, what would happen with the landscape as sediment and other things like the flowers pollen piled up on top of these giant petals

Do you suppose pollen should be bigger as well?

I suppose that would depend on the celestial being that created it and why...

Much of the flower petals would be essential be wood in order to support the necessary weight. As such, the leaves wouldn't fall so much as crumble.

With the pollen it depends. Generally speaking the difference in the size of the pollen shouldn't be as high as the difference of size between normal and those enlarged flowers. As it is, pollen is just seeds or whatever it is for that flower, with some added fluff to make it float in the wind rather than just fall down, so it can't be too large unless it's built specifically for floating.

If anything, there would be much more pollen, but possibly with some additional requirements for it actually being of any use.

That, or instead of pollen as it is you could have those flowers scatter seeds in the same way dandelions do. In those cases the seed packet, so to say, could be proportionally bigger for as long as it was something that could conceivably be carried by wind. If you went that way, you could have the flowers have a limited number of seeds that stopped them from overtaking the world just like that.

Now, going onto the issue of the flower laying on the ground ... technically it doesn't have to. If the flower's petals are strong enough, shaped in a specific way that stops them from bending too much, pointed somewhat up at the base, and if the base of the flower was strong enough and rooted well-enough so that the petals wouldn't pull it out, it is possible to get a larger-than-usual flower that wouldn't have its petals all lie on the ground. Of course for that to happen the petals would have to be something akin to what rafflesias have rather than regular delicate-ish flower petals, and you wouldn't get the petals too high that way, but they still would be off the ground.

The main flower, though, if it was to be pointing up at all, would have to be either specifically built, somewhat magical/divine/whatever, at least partially wooden, or at least partially fossilised/petrified.