El Salvador has dense jungles, ample sunlight and occasional heavy rain that feeds the rainforest the water it needs to thrive. And thrive it does!
Many of the plants here look like they’re straight from the ages of dinosaurs. As a resident of El Salvador that loves the outdoors, I’m always finding new bizarre looking plants that can’t be found in North America. They’re beautiful! I photographed all of the flowers below in El Salvador:
Beehive Gingers (Zingiber spectabile) are bizarre. They look like they’re some form of honeycomb decorations made of plastic. The round ledges are actually the leaves, which are used to collect rainwater. The beak-like protrusions are actually the flower-part of the plant. Bizarre.
Hanging Lobester Claw (Heliconia rostrata) can be found in all tropical regions of the world. Their design collects water which allows birds and insects to drink from them. Clever way to guarantee pollination! Interestingly enough – these take 2-3 years to mature to be able flower. So, these plants put some serious time investment into their reproductive success.
Angel Trumpets (Brugmansia arborea) shown below are highly poisonous. They’re beautiful. Their natural defenses carry a nerve agent which is actually used for many medicinal purposes. I’m glad I didn’t touch it!
More trumpets…
Red Ginger (Alpinia purpurata) is native to Mylasia, but grow in all tropical regions of the world. They’re beautiful, come in various colors and the flower is about 25 centimeters tall.
Pink Ginger – Same species as Red Ginger above.
Flame Bottle Tree (Brachychiton acerifolius) These beautiful plants are known as “Arbol De Fuego” in Latin America, which means “Tree of Fire” in english. They’re very common here in El Salvador and they’re gorgeous. They bringing the foliage to life with brilliant shades of orange. Based on similarities, I thought these were Flamevine (Pyrostegia venusta). However, Flamevine flowers are on vines. The plant in the photo below are of a bush with orange flowers.
Unidentified…can you help me identify this too?
Also unidentified…
Also unidentified. It’s a vining bush of white flowers. They’re very pretty and found sprinkled through-out the rainforest, especially at higher altitudes with cooler air.
Apparently I love taking pictures of exotic flowers. I didn’t realize that this was a hobby of mine until I sorted through some old photos and found all of these flower pictures I had taken over the years.
