July 6 -- back to the botanical garden, part 4

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Hooray -- we found this plant on the ground level.

And here, I believe, is its info tag.

More flowers -- these are big.  As big as my hand, I bet.  This flower was tastefully placed here, on a wall.

We started looking around for the plant that produced that flower.

Goodness.  LOTS of hangy-downy things, with buds, flowers, incipient fruits...  Those big brown things are maturing fruits.  I wonder what they look like inside.........

Now these are cool.  Twisty end-of-leaf things.

Cool again.....  The tag (which I've cropped out) says "beehive ginger."  These are about a yard tall.

Many buds, and RED flowers.

Speaking of flowers.

I've never seen anything like this!  The tag said Bat Flower.  This is large.  Those leaves are over a yard long, and I bet those white stringy things are pushing a yard.  I've never seen anything like this before.  I wonder what the purpose of those white strings is......

So interesting -- the agave gets all the hype, but the Rangoon creeper has more and more colorful (and more beautifully scented?) flowers, and here's the bat flower blooming in an extremely spectacular way, but do the Rangoon creeper or the bat flower get any press?  There was no mention of them on the Botanical garden "what's blooming" page..........  I think maybe they need a volunteer to keep track of what's going on and update their website!  If I could get there without a car, I might think about volunteering to do that!



Looking down at anthurium, which has bindweed wrapped around its flower stem.

Looking at another anthurium from the side.

Bromeliads.

We looked at this one on May 30, and here it is again.

We looked at this one on May 30, too.

This is the same cacao tree we looked at from above and behind.  It is blooming, too.  Little bitty white flowers, coming right out of the trunk. 

I am told that this is how cacao does business -- flowers and new pods developing, all year 'round.  Thank you, cacao trees everywhere, from all of us chocolate lovers!

And thus endeth our July 6 trip to the Botanical Garden.

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