Hydnora africana (no common name)
A parasitic plant in the family Aristolochiaceae (pipevines), it's completely underground and has no chlorophyll like many parasitic plants. It feeds on Euphorbiaceae (spurges). Only the flowers emerge above groud to attract pollinators. They look like flesh and smell like feces to attract flies and dung beetles.
This is a fully opened flower.
And here's a cross section. The papillae at the top are osmophores, they carry glands that produce the poop smell. Down below there are 2 connected chambers. The upper part is the male part, the ring dividing them carries the anthers. At the bottom of the lower part is the stigma (female part). The white things in the unconnected chamber below that are the unripe seeds.
Strongylodon macrobotrys (Jade vine)
Something pretty to recover from the nightmare above. This big tropical climbing plant can get up to 18 meters long and is native to Luzon Island (Philippines). It's in the family Fabaceae (legumes, beans, peas). The huge turquoise flower clusters are only produced by mature plants.
Closer view of some individual flowers. Quite pea flower like actually.
And a nice outdoor view of some grown on a pergola.
Angiopteris evecta (King fern/Giant fern)
It's hard to put into perspective just how huge this fern is. There are few images showing fully mature plants, probably because there are not that many of them in easily reachable places.
This giant is native to northern Australia and the Malay Peninsula. Mature fronds can get up to 9 meters long, the stalks of each frond as thick as a thigh. The caudex can get 2 meters across and weigh more than a metric ton.
This plant is interesting for more than just its size too. It belongs to the family Marattiaceae, an ancient lineage and a bit of a relic. These used to be one of the most dominant plant groups in the Mesozoic (dino times), and probably one of the main food sources for huge sauropods and other dinos. They have declined a lot since the earth got cooler and drier and are very restriced to the tropics with only about 100 species today.
Also it's a bit of a misconcenption to think of ferns or other spore plants as ancient and "primitive". They are just as modern as the other plants around us, they've just been around longer, the species we have today are just as evolved as flowering plants.
Gethyllis (Kukumakranka)
Gethyllis are bulb plants from South Africas deserts that belong to the Amaryllidaceae. There are about 30 described species and probably many more undescribed. They lay dormant for most of the year and only develop leaves in the 4 more humid winter months. The weird spiral shape is to catch fog and let it run down onto the stem, where it's caught by a fold and absorbed into the bulb.
The plant in this picture is Gethyllis namaquensis.
And this is Gethyllis britteniana, with longer stems where you can see the fold better.
And here's a hand for scale. They are small plants that are easily overlooked, especially during the 8 months of the year they just lay dormant.
Nepenthes truncata x merrilliana (no common name)
I was debating if I should include man made hybrids or just natural species in this but my desire to show this thing won out over my desire to just show wild type plants. You've probably all seen tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes) before. But probably not this one. This hybrid of two already big lowland species produces the biggest pitchers I know.
Nepenthes are vining plants, mostly from South-East Asia which have leaves that develop into passive pitfall traps. Contrary to popular belief they do not do much digesting of their caught prey themselves, they are mostly just filled with water with a low concentration of enzymes that help break down organic matter. Most of the work is done by so called "infauna", animals and microorganisms that live in their pitchers, sometimes exlusively.
To make up for showing you a hybrid here's a natural species, Nepenthes robcantleyi, from Mindanao (Philippines). The huge "collar" is called a peristome and it's very slippery only in one direction: Towards the mouth of the trap.
And Nepenthes edwardsiana from Mount Kinabalu (Borneo), another species with a nicely spiked peristome. Lovingly called "Eddy" by Nepenthes collectors.
Begonia pavonina (Peacock Begonia)
There's more to Begonias than the sorta boring garden plants you know. With over 1800 species in the genus there's gotta be some amazing ones, right?
This Begonia from Malaysia develops highly metallic blue iridescent leaves under certain circumstances. This is an adaption to living under extremely shady canopy, deep in rainforests. The blue is produced as a byproduct of a special arrangement of their chloroplasts into a crytal like lattice (then called Iridoplasts) that helps them capture about 10% more light. The plant needs to be grown in very shady and humid conditions to produce the blue color, otherwise it doesn't bother. The blue is also only well visible from certain angles.
Other Begonias and also lots of other totally unrelated plants have developed the same strategy, I'll show a few further down. Here's another blue Begonia, an as of yet undescribed species known as Begonia sp. 'Temuyuk'
And another one. Begonia metallicolor from Sarawak (Borneo), a species only described in 2018. This is actually my own picture this time.
Dracula anthracina (Coal Black Dracula)
Draculas are orchids from Central and South America that grow on mountains that emerge from the rainforests in a habitat known as cloud forest. Very humid and foggy with mild temperatures during the day and cold night. In this habitat there are few bees and butterflies to pollinate flowers but lots of flies and beetles that feed on mushrooms. Draculas imitate the smell and even the looks (central part of the flower) of these to attract them so they get pollinated. The central part of the flower that looks like a monkeys face is movable and houses a mechanism to guide pollinators to the right place.
There are about 120 species of Dracula orchid. Here's another one, Dracula chiroptera (Bat Dracula)
And a third one, Dracula vampira (Vampire Dracula). Dracula is actually latin for "little dragon", which is what their name is supposed to mean, but we all know Dracula as a name for a vampire.
Boophone disticha (century plant)
Bit of a funny name, often misspelled as Boophane and even more often mispronounced as "boo phone" (bo-o-pho-ne would be correct). This bulb plant from the family Amaryllidaceae from South Africa is about the most poisonous on the continent. It was (is?) used as an arrow poison by natives to hunt big game, analogous to how dart frog poison is used in the Amazon. This should give you an idea of its toxicity.
It's pyrophoric, meaning it flowers only after fires, which it survives by being isolated by its old leaf stems that burn well and quickly while the bush fire passes over it, leaving the juicy inside intact. This is a picture of someone setting his own plant on fire to see the flowers. You probably shouldn't breathe in this smoke...
And here's the resulting flowers.
Coryanthes macrantha (bucket orchid)
Native to South and Central America these fast growing and big orchids produce large and complicated flowers that hang below the plant on a long stalk. They are pollinated exclusively by orchid bees, which they attract with an odorous wax stored above the bucket.
Male orchid bees (not the females) are attracted to the flower because they court females with a "perfume" they mix from various sources in their environment, including these orchids.
The bees, trying to get the wax, fall to the fluid-filled bucket. As they are trying to escape, they find that there are some small knobs on which they can climb on, while the rest of the lip is lined with smooth, downward-pointing hairs, which their claws cannot find a grip. The knobs lead to a spout, but as the bee is trying to escape, the spout constricts. At that same moment, the small packets containing the pollen of the orchid get pressed against the thorax of the bee.
There's about 35 species of Coryanthes, this is Coryanthes seegeri.
Brachystelma barberae (no common name), from the Asclepiadaceae (milkweeds). Another bulb from South Africa. The petals stay fused as the top giving the flowers a cage like appearance. It smeels awfuls and attracts flies.
Close up of flower.
Christia obcordata (Butterfly Stripe Plant)
Another legume (Fabaceae) with awesomely shapend and colored leaves from Indonesia. Apparently quite hard to grow from seed. I've got a few germinating right now, hopefully I won't kill them.
Conophytum wettsteinii (no common name)
Related to the more commonly known Lithops, Conophytume or cone plants are from South African deserts where they grow in the wet winter months and stay dormant over the summer.
Older plant flowering from between last years leaves.
Another Conophytum, C. burgeri is almost featureless. It has a purple flower too.
Cystorchis stenoglosa (no common name)
A rare jewel orchid from Indonesia with black leaves and colored (mostly yellow or reddish) dots. It grows in damp forest undergrowth and has rather unspectacular flowers.
Another one showing slightly different patterns and color, they are very variable.
Phragmipedium caudatum (no common name)
Another terrestrial orchid, this time from south America. Probably the biggest of all (single) orchid flowers, the long pendant petals can get up to a meter long. It grows next to small streams and needs to be constantly wet and cool but also likes a lot of light.
Close up of the upper part of the flower. You'll note this also has a pouch like the Coryanthes, but this is not for orchid bees.
The long petals are not unique to this one plant. Here's a Paphiopedilum (ladyslipper orchid) sanderianum that also has long petals. Though not quite as long as the Phragmipedium from above.
Petal length is quite variable and dependent on good care.
Pseudolithos cubiformis (no common name)
It's not the latest minecraft texture pack, it's real and from Somalia and Yemen. It belongs to the Apocynaceae (milkweeds) and makes pretty funky flowers and seedpods too.
Older plant with lots of flowers.
Closely related, Pseudolithos migiurtinus makes interesting seed pods.
Selaginella siamensis (Siam spike moss)
Selaginellas also called spike mosses are neither mosses nor ferns but their own group of spore plants. They are globally distributed but this one is from Thailand and shows the same kind of iridescence I talked about earlier with the Begonia. It's totally unrelated to that and has evolved the same light catching mechanism independently.
Here's another Selaginella that's also iridescent but much much larger than the last one, Selaginella willdenowii. It's rambling and can climb tree stems too and gets several meters high.
And a third Selag that's not blue but black. An adaption to probably be less conspicuous to herbivores in the dark undergrowth. This is Selaginella intermedia, from Thailand.
Begonia melanobullata (no common name)
Another amazing Begonia, from Vietnam. What you're looking at is another strategy to avoid herbivores, looking like you're already infected with something else or something has eaten you. The black spikes tipped by a single hair are probably supposed to look like galls (tumor like growths induced by tiny wasps or fly larva that feed on plant tissue). The spikes are soft and actually hollow from below.
View from below.
Monstera obliqua (no common name)
You think you've seen this plant before but you haven't. Monsteras belong to the Araceae (Aroids) and are very popular as houseplants these days. And lots of people think they have one, but in reality they do not. What they have is Monstera adansonii, a common plant in garden centers and hardware stores. The true M. obliqua (pictured here) has much more reduced leaves and is exceedingly rare. So rare it's hard to find high resolution images of. There's thousands of images of supposed obliquas mislabeled on google and all sorts of social media.
These were the best images I was able to find of a real one. The leaves aren't damaged, that is how it grows. Another strategy to deter herbivores, look like you're already eaten and not worth the effort.
For reference: There are only 17 known times in botanic history when Monstera obliqua was seen in the wild and leaves or other were collected for study. And some of those turned out to be misidentifications.
