Month: May 2013

Rare & Unusual Tropical Trees & Plants, Flowering, Fruit, Native, Palm, Bamboo, Heliconia, Hummingbird, Butterfly

Golden Dewdrops (Duranta erecta f/k/a Duranta repens)

If you’re not already familiar with Duranta erecta, now is a good time to get acquainted with this very attractive New World flowering species.  Like a lot of plants, it comes with its own little bag of mysteries:  Its current specific epithet, erecta, means upright.  Yet an older epithet, repens, means creeping.  That sounds like…
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May 24, 2013 0

Lipstick Tree (Bixa orellana)

Bixa orellana, the Lipstick Tree, has to be one of the most fascinating plants found anywhere.  It has been valuable, versatile and popular for so long that no one knows exactly where in the New World Tropics it originated. The species name honors Francisco de Orellana, a Spanish conquistador of the 16th century, who, according…
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May 12, 2013 0