Camellia. This plant wasn't as fragrant as I would have predicted. There weren't very many blossoms in their prime, and none of those were where I could put my nose right next to them. But it seems to me that, usually, if I get anywhere near a blooming camellia, I am drawn in by the fragrance..... This time I got a whiff, but missed the usual strong (and beautiful) scent.
Reality check -- this is what it is like outside................... Cold, monochromatic, snow, snow snow.....
Back to fantasy land. Ginger. Puzzled by the lack of leaves.....
There are walkways 10 feet or so above the main level of the conservatory, along both of the long walls in the tropical and temperate rooms. We are on the eastern walkway, now, above the temperate room.
More bromeliads up here. Including this big one, with a big flower stalk. I read somewhere that bromeliads have more different kinds of flowers than other groups of plants.
Note the waterfall, visible at the bottom. We are enjoying the smell of the fertile earth, the green, Green, GREEN of happy plants, and the sound of running water.........
Remember that fruit we saw before? Alone on a brick? It came from here.
Surinam cherry.
Really big bromeliads. It would be fun to see these in bloom!
Really frustrated with Blogger, changing my pics without a by-your-leave! Grrrrr!
I mean, I love orange and all, but this is NOT what this image looks like, really. This is WAY too saturated. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
What I wanted to talk about for the image below was the various gentle curves. NOT ABOUT NEON ORANGE.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........................................
Sigh.
Moving on.
Guava.
And here's the resultant baby guava fruit.
I do not know what this is called, but these are some exotic flowers!
Now we're on the walkway on the west side of the conservatory. This makes me think of the silvery palms I saw in the Bahamas.
A different not-pine-cone structure.
Monstera. I totally love these leaves. So huge, so interesting.
I bet this leaf was 18" across.
And now for something completely different -- these little plants apparently all are symbiotic with ants.
Hard to imagine they have any of the right kinds of ants here, so I guess the plants can survive without them?
I took this pic because I thought #3 was weird. Then I read the info (see below).
Remember that you can click on any image to embiggen -- isn't this strange? Who knew.......
Here's #1, named on the info above. All the plants in this section are little bitty things. Under 6" in height, and manyof them only 2-3" tall.
Speaking of plants with large and interesting leaves......... This is a papaya.
I don't like papaya, but if I lived in the tropics, I would be very tempted to grow this, just for the excellent plant/leaves......
When I was here last summer, I took a pic of one of these.
I am pretty sure this next image is the flower that leads to the fruit shown above. Isn't that strange? I would never have guessed, without seeing them both on the same tree at the same time (which I believe is true -- it's getting to be a pretty long time since the 4th and I'm not positive I'm remembering things correctly ).
Even now, looking at the leaves in the two pics, they look like the same leaves. Sturdy, oval, with serrated edges. And the brown bark with teeny white speckles........ Which you can't see above, but which I cropped out of that image (the better to focus attention on the fruit, which is not large -- the dark bits are about half an inch long).
At the south end of the western walkway. Pitcher plants. Here is a pitcher plant flower.
This is showy, and looks sort of floral, but it's not a flower.
A closer look.
Once upon a time, several years ago, the conservatory had an extensive collection of pitcher plants. I wonder if they still have them, but they're not on display, or if something happened to them. I suppose everything has its natural lifestyle, and it takes resources to either propagate and grow new ones, or acquire new ones from other sources........... I'm sure they are constantly making decisions about how to allocate resources -- space as well as money..........
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