July 6 -- back to the botanical garden, part 2

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Back inside the desert room in the conservatory.  You can see most of the agave and its flower stalk in this image.  The agave is that green-and-yellow-striped concoction of strap-like leaves, and it looks like you can see most of its flower stalk, including the part that goes through the roof.

It is also the case that my favorite plant has put up a very similar flower stalk, which is also visible in this image.

From a different angle -- the two stalks marked in fuchsia..........

This plant looks very different from the agave (see one yellow-and-green-striped agave leaf at left).

The plants look different, but the flower stalks look very similar.  This little plant (about a foot tall) has put out a flower stalk that is way taller than I am.  Twice as tall, maybe.

I'm writing this on 7/20.  The agave finally bloomed, and it's pics are online.  This little plant was blooming on 7/6, and the flowers look very similar to the pics I've seen for the agave.

The individual flowers are not all that spectacular, but the clusters are more showy, and the sheer numbers of flowers, on those really tall stalks..................  Impressive.

Love the colors and textures of this plant.

The way the leaves seem to be marked with the outlines of other leaves......

Here's another plant we looked at before.........  A small plant, not much more than a foot across, and less than a foot tall.  With ENORMOUS flowers (especially for its size).

Last time it had the beginnings of a flower (though I had no idea how -- or even *that* -- it would open).  On May 30, it looked like this.  I wondered if this was something carnivorous.......  All those hairs, to trap insects inside?

On the 6th, it looked like this.  Wide open.  No more appearance of a trap.

Closer.

So many different shapes/colors/textures, just in this one habitat...........

Here's an odd-looking thing.  Definitely cactusy (only square?) below, with a few normal-looking leaves above...........  And all coming from that skinny little base.

This one is very little, as well as being maroon.

Another look at the agave's flower stalk.

I think hen and chickens can grow outside in Michigan.  I wonder how old this one is, to have had time to grow such a long stalk!

At first I thought the red on this Christmasy cactus was buds or flowers, but now I think it's fruits.

We have now left the desert for the temperate section of the conservatory.

Monstera.

Really big leaves (pushing a yard, I think), and really big flowers -- 10" or more, I think.

We saw those pine-cone-looking things on the 30th of May, from below.

The temperate and tropical sections of the conservatory have walkways along the sides, so you can look down on the plants from above as well as looking up at them from the ground level.

There are always blooms of one sort or another in the conservatory.

I had to show you a closer view, to celebrate the sharpness of the image.  Look at the bark on the twig, at left........

All these happy-looking new leaves are on one of the cacao (chocolate) plants.

I remember seeing silvery palms like this in the Caribbean.

Pretty sure this is plumeria, though I did not smell anything (I was five or six feet away from this flower cluster).

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