Does anyone here know what Rafflesia and Jacob's Ladders look like in the game?
The
Rafflesia is a red flower - it looks a lot like a flattened pansy without a stalk, but it is much larger and the flower takes up most of the one square of space that items appear on.
You will get the Rafflesia if you badly neglect your town and it is covered in weeds.
You can't pull it up or dig it up. You have to weed your town to get rid of it. You need to remove most of the weeds - at least 70% of them (I think) and then, the following day the Rafflesia will whither (turn brown) and die/disappear.
Jacob's Ladders are plants with small white bell shaped flowers (they look a little like a Lilly of the Valley plant).
You will get Jacob's Ladders if you achieve a "perfect" town status. They appear in the mornings in random spots. You can pick them and display them in your house or move them to different locations, in the same way as normal plants. They also will whither (turn brown) but will come back to life the next day if you water them (in the same way as normal plants).
Jacob's Ladders do not appear every single day that you have a "perfect" town, but they do appear more regularly, the longer you manage to keep your town perfect.
(Perfect towns: You need to keep the town weed free and have a sufficient balance of trees and flowers planted. This topic from another forum called AnimalXing.com might be of some use to anyone who is wondering
How to Get a Perfect Town although I have to be honest, I just bought all the saplings and flowers at Tom Nooks and planted them all every day until I got the perfect town status
)