Exotic Beauty (16) : Taiwan Pleione

Exotic Beauty (16) : Taiwan Pleione

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 : Aardorchidee
German name : Tibetorchidee
Latin name : Pleione formosana

Country of origin : high in the mountains of Tibet, China, Taiwan

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This Orchid species is nearly extinct in the wild and stands on the Red List of Threatened Species.
The flowers in the picture were growing in a remote corner of the conservatory and difficult to photograph, but I got them !