Botany Gardens News April/May 09

Older issues of Botany Gardens News are available in the archive.

The following plants are currently in flower or are showing interesting features.

Abulilon hybridum ‘Michael’

 
Abutilons are natives of Brazil, tropical Asia and India.   They belong to the family Malvaceae.  This particular hybrid is a shrub growing up to 2.5 metres high.  It has soft lobed palmate leaves, rather like a maple.  The solitary drooping flowers are an intense red colour with delicate veining on the petals, they are lantern shaped and produced sporadically throughout the year.

Acalypha  wilkesiana

 
is a spreading shrub belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae.  It can grow to a height of four metres or more.  The oval leaves have serrated margins like a nettle, but the leaf colour however, is very distinct with green, black and red blotches.
This species is grown for its handsome foliage rather than for the minute red flowers which are born on long pendant spikes.
The plants are unisexual, and all parts are poisonous if ingested.

Aechmea fasciata  ‘Blue Rain’

 
(Family:  Bromeliaceae) A. fasciata originates from the tropical regions of Brazil.  In their natural habitat they can be found growing on trees as epiphytes in the rain forests.  The waxy leaves are arranged in such a way as to trap and store rain water in their bases and also in the central ‘vase’ of leaves.  Water and nutrients are absorbed by suckers at the bases of the leaf rosettes.  The root system is relatively small, as its function is merely to provide anchorage for the plant.

Begonia ‘Connie Boswell’

(Family; Begoniaceae)  There are around 900 species and hybrids in the genus Begonia.  They are mainly shrubs and succulent herbs.  They originate from the tropics and sub tropics, especially America.  Connie Boswell is quite distinctive with wide-spreading maple-like leaves, which have a lovely silvery sheen.  The veins are picked out in dark green and the undersides of the leaves are flushed red. 

Cuphea ignea

(Family: Lythraceae)  This small sub-shrub from Jamaica and Mexico bears interesting tubular flowers of a bright red colour.  At the apex of each flower is a narrow black ring edged with white giving the appearance of a glowing cigar!  Hence its vernacular name: Cigar Plant.

Dendrobium nobile

(Family: Orchidaceae)  Dendrobium is a very varied genus.
D. nobile  has fleshy segmented stems clothed with lanceolate leaves  The white flowers which appear in the winter and spring are also born all the way up the stems.  This orchid is native to the Himalaya.

Lycopodium phlegmaria

(Family:  Lycopodiaceae)

(picture: Emily Jane Jones)

Lycopodium is a Club Moss, which is an ancient group of small creeping plants with vascular, but non-woody branched stems.  These plants reproduce by means of spores contained within sporangia which are born in terminal cones on the tips of the branches.
Lycopodium phlegmaria has branched pendulous stems and is native to tropical regions in the Old World.

Phalaenopsis

(family; Orchidaceae)  Phalaenopsis are epiphytic orchids with thick fleshy leaves.  There are no stems but the flower stalk is long and slender and bears branched inflorescences of very beautiful flowers.  There are many different varieties and hybrids.  This genus is endemic to Burma, Vietnam, the Philipines and Indonesia.

Zantedescia elliottiana

(Family:  Araceae)  Zantedeschia is native to Southern Africa, though Z. elliottiana  is not known in the wild and is probably of hybrid origin.   The bright green leaves are heavily speckled with translucent white spots.  The petioles are more than half the total length of the leaves.  The inflorescence is very striking with a golden yellow funnel shaped spathe and  a yellow spadix within.