Rare Plants & Flowers
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Anthurium andraeanum is a flowering plant species in the family Araceae that is native to Colombia and Ecuador. A winner of the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit, it is one of the plants listed in the NASA Clean Air Study as effective in removing formaldehyde, xylene, toluene, and ammonia from the air.
Common names for plants in the genus Anthurium include flamingo flower, tailflower, painter's palette, and laceleaf. Its name comes from the Greek words anthos, meaning flower, and oura, meaning a tail, referring to the spadix.
Native to Ecuador and southwestern Colombia, it is also naturalised in other parts of the world. It is found in the Caribbean and Réunion. It is grown as an ornamental plant in the form of many hybrids or horticultural varieties. It is commonly used to make bouquets
Nepenthes, also called tropical pitcher plant or monkey cup,
The pitcher plant is a type of plant that eats insects, also called a carnivorous plant. They are rare and unique. Typical plants consume nutrients from the soil, but carnivorous plants are found in nutrient-poor soil. They get their nutrition from insects they "catch," after converting them into a form they can digest or absorb.
The pitcher plant is a carnivorous type of plant that includes several species. It attracts insects to it using the scents of nectar and already-captured dead insects, and once inside, insects cannot escape and drown in a pool of water at the bottom. Instead of getting nutrients from the soil, the pitcher plant uses enzymes to digest the insects for its nutrition. It is located along the east coast of North America, in bogs and other wet locations with acidic soil.
Carnivorous plants have a variety of methods to get prey: pitfall traps (like the pitcher plant), snap traps (like venus flytraps) and flypaper traps (like sundews) are just a few. In North America there are 10 known species in the genus Sarracenia, the pitcher plants. Sarracenia purpurea is probably the most common.
According to the International Carnivorous Plant Society, pitcher plants of the genus Sarracenia are located in the eastern United States, from the southeast and along the coastline up through British Columbia.
Pitcher plants are mostly found in bogs, often in the wettest sections. Although they don't require acidic soil, they are well-adapted to nutrient-poor and acidic dirt. They live in areas that are prone to fires, and can survive fire under some circumstances.
Pitcher plants resemble their name: they look like pitchers. Inside the elongated structure is a pool of water. Decaying insects that have been trapped inside, along with nectar from the "lid," attract flies, beetles, butterflies and other insects to the plant. The plant's flowers are the color of raw meat, which further serves to attract flies.
Once inside, many insects find it difficult to exit the structure, so they eventually drown in the liquid. The interior walls are waxy and slippery, and there are hairs toward the top that aid in keeping prey trapped. The plant's enzymes digest the meal and the plant is then able to absorb the nutrients.
While pitcher plants are popular houseplants, it is not a good idea to harvest them from the wild because some species have become extinct this way. Instead, obtain them through a nursery. They are best-suited to bog gardens and indoor terrariums, and they require sunlight and mildly acidic soil.
Some insects and animals live harmoniously with pitcher plants. Some predators, like spiders, use the lid to hide under, and some insect larvae, like mosquitoes, live inside the pitcher plant itself. Ants that die inside the plant are used for their decaying scent to attract other prey. Sometimes small frogs will hide in pitcher plants, eating flies that are attracted to the plant.
The Rafflesia arnoldii is a very rare and a unique plant producing no leaves, stems or roots and it does not even have chlorophyll. Due to its rarity, the Rafflesia arnoldii is considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Read more about this exotic world's largest flower at my blog virtualadrian.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-worlds-largest-flo...
Photographed in Taba Penanjung, Bengkulu province - Indonesia.
#rafflesia #rafflesiaarnoldii
Rainforests of Bengkulu province are also home to the world's tallest flower and possibly the smelliest flower Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum), known locally as Kibut or also known as bunga Bangkai.
The flower is a rich red, with a huge yellow stamen protruding from its core, when it throws up a spectacular flower spike than can stand over 2 m (6.5 feet) high. Titan Arum / Kibut creates such a stink because when the flower is fully open, it gets hot and emits a repulsive scent that is attractive to its pollinators. It only lasts about 3 days before collapsing. Read more at my blog virtualadrian.blogspot.com/2013/03/kibut-worlds-tallest-f...
Location: Bukit Daun, Kepahiang - Indonesia
#titanarum #amorphophallustitanum #kibut #carrionflower
Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) the world's tallest flower and possibly the smelliest flower. More informally it is also called Corpse flower. It can stand over 2 m (6.5 feet) high. Photographed in the village of Tebat Monok, Kepahiang - Indonesia. Read more about this weird plant at my blog virtualadrian.blogspot.com/2013/03/kibut-worlds-tallest-f...
#titanarum #kibut #bungabangkai #carrionflower #corpseflower #Amorphophallustitanum #LestGuide
The Silent Geometry of Cryptomeria
Inverted black-and-white image of the dwarf conifer Cryptomeria japonica 'Globosa' (family: Taxodiaceae), taken at the Botanical Gardens of Villa Taranto, Italy. The photograph emphasizes the sculptural quality of the branching structure through tonal reversal.
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The Botanical Gardens of Villa Taranto were established by Scottish nobleman Neil Boyd McEacharn (1884–1964). A former British Army officer with a passion for horticulture, McEacharn purchased the estate on the western shore of Lake Maggiore in 1931. He named it "Villa Taranto" in honor of one of his ancestors, who had been named Duke of Taranto by Napoleon. Over the following decades, he transformed the grounds into one of Europe’s most remarkable botanical collections, importing thousands of plant species from around the world.
McEacharn remained closely involved in the garden's development until his death in 1964. In his will, he entrusted the care of the gardens to a public foundation. Today, the Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens are open to the public from spring to autumn, serving both as a place of scientific interest and as a scenic destination for visitors.
Starfish cacti (Stapelia grandiflora) are also more morbidly called the carrion flower. These stinky, but spectacular, plants share similar traits to those from the carnivorous family in that they possess insect attracting flora (but are not carnivorous), which range in size from a couple of inches (5 cm.) high to plants that bear 12-inch (30 cm.) wide flowers. This plant species is native to South Africa, so growing starfish flowers usually requires warm, humid temperatures or a specialized greenhouse environment.
Some striking members of the sunflower family evolved on the Hawaiian Islands from an ancestral California tarweed that colonized these isolated Pacific islands millions of years ago. One of the most fascinating is the Haleakala silver sword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense ssp. macrocephalum) that grows in Haleakala Crater on the island of Maui. The leaves contain air spaces filled with a gelatinous substance that absorbs and stores large quantities of water during the intervals between rains. This stored water is especially important when the plant blooms, because the fast-growing flower stalk requires a lot of moisture as it develops into a massive inflorescence. Silverswords live between 3 and 90 years or more and only flower once, sending up a spectacular flowering stalk, and then die soon afterward, scattering drying seeds with the wind.
These following pictures are for plant ID and inventory purposes. There is no pretense of fine art pictures although any of these subjects is worthy of that.
Kunzea is a genus of plants in the myrtle family and is endemic to Australasia. Kunzea montana is an uncommon species that grows on rocky mountain slopes of the Stirling Range in the south-west of Western Australia. It is a shrub or small tree with more or less round leaves and heads of cream-coloured to pale yellow flowers on the ends of the branches in late spring. florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/browse/profile/5837
A rare and prescious patch. This series is a celebration of this flower and their garden home - Darts Hill. I shoot a combination of fine art style pictures, inventory and plant ID photos for this garden. The hardest thing is to recognize the best use of each photo and try to magnify that impact when shooting. The 'hybrids" are the worst :)...
Isopogon latifolius is a shrub of the family Proteaceae that is endemic to the southwest botanical province of Western Australia. This plant is extremely sensitive to dieback from Phytophthora cinnamomi and is at risk of extinction from it in the wild. Isopogon latifolius can take over five years to flower from seed, meaning it can be locally eradicated by too-frequent fire intervals. The plant only occurs in the Stirling Range and has a priority 4 conservation code: rare, near threatened. We only saw it once.
Prefumo Canyon Rd.,
San Luis Obispo, California
This is the smaller and much rarer sibling of Chocolate Lily. This one tends to be most frequent on serpentine soils.
And thanks to Jackie and Will for the location. It takes a village.
A very rare spring flower found in moist mountain stream environments of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
musica.portalddc.es/listen/supercalifragilisticoespialido...
For Petra...the real Mary:)
HUGS and BACI!
From friday on I will be Away 10 days, visiting the " Elysian fields":)
www.rareplants.de/islas_canarias/legends_canary_islands/l...
The Elysian Fields
Homer, the great poet of Ancient Greece, tells about the Elysian Fields in his "Odyssey". Pindar also wrote about the "Islands of the Blest", and Virgil mentions them in the epic poem Aeneid. The Elysian Fields are at the ends of the world, were Men lead an easier life than any where else in the world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail, nor snow, but Oceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly from the sea, and gives fresh life to all men...." (Homer, Odyssey, Book III).
(Chlorogalum purpurea var. reductum),
Red Hill Rd.,
Eastern San Luis Obispo Co., California
Both varieties of this species are rare, having the California Rare Plant Rank: 1B.1. This one occurs only in San Luis Obispo Co. It is very small, the top of this plant's flowers being only about 3" (~8cm) above the ground. The genus was named after Robert Hoover, author of the original flora of San Luis Obispo (1970) who had much earlier suggested that the genus Chlorogalum was "'comprised of two separate lines of descent,' and this has been confirmed by molercular phylogenetic studies. Hooveria, comprising two diurnally-flowering species is segregated as a genus from three vesperine-flowering species, which remain as Chlorogalum."--Keil and Hoover, Vascular Plants of San Luis Obispo County, California, 2022
Even in a large rock, plants like this fern find a tiny place to start growing. Meanwhile I've been told by Tim Melling that it's the rare Green Spleenwort, which has green stems (see comments below).
Seen on the Irish Sheep's Head Peninsula, where weather conditions can be harsh. It was on the Sheep's Head Way, quite close to the lighthouse on its tip (see my next photo). [Explored on 28/05/2025, #49]
Near Pt. Sierra Nevada,
NW San Luis Obispo Co., California
This is a very short variety of the species. It is also very limited in range, mostly on coastal bluffs and terraces. California Rare Plant Rank: 1B.2
Here are photos showing the flowers extended:
A view of the Natural Park of Penyal d'Ifac from Playa Puerto Blanco in Calpe on the Costa Blanca,Spain.
The Parque Natural Del Peñón de Ifach is a massive limestone outcrop that stands at 332m that emerges straight from the sea and is linked to the mainland by a detritic isthmus.
It is home to over 300 species of animals and a nesting site for seabirds and other birds,as well as being home to numerous rare plants and a number of endemic species. It is also one of the smallest nature reserves in Europe.
Well worth the effort to get to the top as well.
Thanks for taking the time to view this and other images in my photo stream,
In trigger plants (Stylidium) pollination is achieved through the use of a sensitive "trigger", which comprises the male and female reproductive organs fused into a floral column that snaps forward quickly in response to touch, harmlessly covering the insect in pollen. Most of the approximately 300 species are only found in Australia. The left flower in the photo is untriggered (trigger bent backwards below the flower plane) while the right one has been recently triggered and the floral column has snapped forward. It will reset to the original position within about 15 min. It was actually moving back while I was taking some shots. Stylidium leptocalyx is a rare and beautiful triggerplant with a very limited distribution. Thanks to Jean and Fred Hort jeans_Photos for showing us these gems in Wandoo National Park where they are still discovering new flower and insect species. A short video of the trigger action: www.youtube.com/shorts/bWJPV1MsBvw
Branklyn Garden is a hillside public garden in the Kinnoull area of the Scottish city of Perth. The garden is set in 2 acres (0.81 ha) in the western foothills of Kinnoull Hill.
A National Trust for Scotland site, the garden was established in 1922 by John and Dorothy Renton, who built a house on the property. The couple's desire was to have a garden that featured rare and unusual plants, along with flowers from all over the world. Several people, including George Forrest and Frank Ludlow, collected seeds for the garden, which now has over 3,500 species of plants. Today, the garden is also home to several national collections of plants, including Meconopsis and Cassiope.
Laguna Lake Open Space,
San Luis Obispo, California
This species grows only in a small part of San Luis Obispo County, usually on serpentine soil, and has California Rare Plant Rank: 1B.2 (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA).
We saw this beautiful plant growing when we visited Bowood House and tried to get hold of one. It is rare in the UK but we have managed to buy some seeds. We are hoping they are the real deal as you can get lots of other abutilon's but not this one. Phill has planted them, so it's a case of watching and waiting