University Greenhouse, Part V: Tropical Nirvana

Today we're transitioning from the arid desert to a tropical oasis (literally, as the greenhouse has a room that's just a koi pond surrounded by aquatic and tropical plants). Enjoy your stay!

First up for today is part of a jade tree. This was still in the desert room. I planted a cutting of jade in one of my classes and might be bringing it home this week. They're beautiful, in my opinion. This one has some hard water stains on it but is still looking healthy.

I don't know what this white vine is, but it's neat! Also of note is the fact that I recently learned how white plants like this photosynthesize. Green plants have chlorophyll, which is the pigment that captures the sun's energy, but other pigments can do this as well. Carotenes are pigments that photosynthesize sugars for orange and some yellow plants, and xanthophylls do the same for some yellow and white (or "clear") plants. Anthocyanins are the pigments responsible for making plant tissues red or purple, but these are incapable of converting electromagnetic radiation into carbohydrates. So this plant must make its food via xanthophylls. There's your nerdy plant lesson for the day!

Now we've made it to the koi room. Yes there are real, live koi fish in it. You can see the pond in the background. This leaf is impressive.

This is why it's impressive.

That is a women's size 9 shoe. That leaf probably has more area than ten soles of that shoe. Eve could have stitched two together and been completely modest.

These leaves were similarly large and impressive, but even more interesting. I don't know how they develop those holes. Also, when taking this shot I was ripped from my immersion in the splendor by that SUV. You don't think about it while wandering about this magical plant playland, but there's a parking lot and a whole concrete world right outside.

This leaf too was intriguing. I wish more plants were labeled, but I think the person staffing this greenhouse has been tasked with identifying its residents. So they're working on it. Maybe I'll go back there in a few months and find more names to match all the beautiful faces (more like fronds).

Speaking of fronds, here's a fern! While ferns can survive and thrive in lots of different conditions (they're great houseplants, as they filter air superbly), they can only reproduce in continually moist environments. In tomorrow's post you'll get to see fern reproduction in action, and I'll rant geekily about why that only happens when there's lots of water around.

With this picture, we move into the last room of the greenhouse. This room is also kept at tropical temperature and humidity levels. It is home to two famous (infamous? nefarious? you decide) plants. This is the first: a member of the Orchidaceae (orchid) family that produces a long, slender bean pod containing vanilla beans. These are used to produce vanilla extract and those devilish iced frappucinos you can get at Starbucks. One vanilla bean pod sells for ten bucks in grocery stores, making me wonder who takes home the pods produced by this plant. It wasn't bearing fruit on this visit, but it was last fall.

There were a lot of orchids in this room, but only one was blooming. Their blooms just look fancy, so I can see why so many people enjoy cultivating them. Last time I went to this greenhouse, nearly all the orchids were in bloom. The smell was so intoxicating it almost knocked me over.

Also in this room were several bromeliads. This first one was larger and crazier than mine, and it's "rooted" in the tree behind it. Bromeliads are basically the only plants that don't need soil to live. I think those yellow stalks to the left are probably flowers by now.

Here are some tamer bromeliads that look a lot more like tillandsia, which is what I have. These were on the same bench as most of the orchids, which makes sense: you're supposed to fertilize bromeliads by mixing orchid fertilizer with water.

At this point, you may be asking yourself something along the lines of "Wait, she said there were TWO famous plants in this room, but she only talked about one!" This is true. The next celebrity plant is coming to you tomorrow, but in case you can't handle that much suspense, I'll give you a hint: its scientific name is Theobroma cacao.  And if you can't figure it out, you only have to wait until tomorrow.

Next post: Greenhouse Pictures: Tropical Oasis: Part II, featuring my special mystery guest Theobroma.