Exotic Beauty (11) : Living Rock

Exotic Beauty (11) : Living Rock

The past 2 years I made several visits to the conservatories of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium where 10.000 (!) plant and tree species originating from the tropics and the subtropics are growing in the greenhouses over there.

Thanks to the warm and moist climate in the conservatories and the intensive maintenance, it’s really amazing what an immense great variety of exotic flowers from all over the world can be seen there, even in the cold winter season !
Flowers whose natural habitat is situated in the rainforest, the mountain forest, isolated islands, deserts, etc……. Places that most of us will never or seldom visit.
Some of the flowers are very rare, extremely colourful or specially shaped.
Others were introduced in Europe by men and became a cultivated species or ornamental houseplant.

I selected the –to my personal taste- most beautiful flowers that I saw there and made a series of them.

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Dutch name : --
German name : --
Latin name : Ariocarpus fissuratus

Country of origin : the hot deserts of Mexico and Texas (southern USA)

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A very rare cactus species that grows extremely slow. This 10cm high specimen is about 20 years old.
When not blooming, it’s quite difficult to locate it in the desert wild with its remarkable and well camouflaged rock-like appearance of the stem.
The flower lasts only for 3 to 4 days.