Many of the plants we purchase as annuals here in Canada become perennials in the tropics. Exotics are natives there. Plants are pollinated by ants, bees, hummingbirds and bats (apparently if flowers point upward they are pollinated by bats, and downward they are pollinated by hummingbirds).
Ficus trees that live for centuries.
Banana trees with their florid blooms.
Walking palms sending their phallic roots downward as they inch their way across the jungle floor.
Wild orchids that live for hundreds of years. It's illegal to pick them in Costa Rica even if they are growing in your own backyard.
Epiphytes surviving on air.
Parasitic plants like the strangling fig that overtakes its botanical victim by germinating in the canopy and then wrapping itself around the host to steal the nutrients.
Miracle medicinal botanicals said to cure everything from high cholesterol to cancer.
What an amazing planet!
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| walking palm |
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| Ficus |
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