Flowers are a wonderful gift of nature to man. Their fragile beauty and pleasant aroma (although not in all species) have inspired lovers, poets and painters for a long time. There are a variety of flowers that grow in most parts of the world. But there is also very rare types of flowers, which most people will be able to see only in a photo or in some kind of educational program.
We present you the top 10 of the rarest flowers in the world, photos, names and interesting facts about them.
10. Ghost Orchid
This amazing flower with white and green petals grows in Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas. He prefers to live in trees deep in cypress bogs. A very specific fungus grows there, the symbiosis with which allows the plant to receive nutrients. The flower got its name due to the stem, almost invisible on the tree trunk. This makes the orchid seem to float in the air like a ghost.
The ghostly orchid is pollinated only at night, by giant butterflies called "Antey hawk moth" with a wingspan of more than 17.2 cm. The book "Orchid Thief" by Susan Orleans was even written about the flower, and later the film "Adaptation" was made based on it. It was starred by Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.
9. Dancing girls (Impatiens Bequaertii)
In ninth place on the list of the rarest and most beautiful flowers in the world is the charming Impatiens Bequaertii orchid from the rainforests of East Africa. She looks like a little girl in a skirt and with her arms spread out to the side.
In general, Impatiens Bequaertii flowers are white, but rarely pink with two yellow "buttons" on the petals. The underside of the flower is red like wine, and the leaves are olive green in the shape of a heart. This amazing plant needs a warm climate (45 to 35 degrees).
8. Hibiscus arnottianus
Many people love hibiscus tea. However, it is unlikely that you have ever drunk tea with Arnotti hibiscus flowers, which are found in the mountain forests of Oahu and Molokai. The plant itself is a shrub that grows from 4.5 to 6 meters in height. Its smooth, dark green leaves are 10 to 14 cm long. The flowers of the plant are snow-white with yellowish-red pistils. White is an interesting color for the hibiscus genus, given that most of these flowers are red or orange. Subspecies Arnotti immaculatus is extremely rare and grows only in a few valleys on the island of Molokai. Its main enemies are wild goats, who do not know that they are destroying a unique and endangered species.
7. Parrot beak (Lotus Bertelotii)
One of the rarest flowers in the world grows in the Canary Islands. The leaves of the flower are divided into 3-5 thin leaves, densely covered with fine silvery hairs. Its colors range from orange to red.
It was once believed that its pollinators were some "sunbirds" that lived for a long time in the Canary Islands, but then disappeared. However, scientists have found that this funny-looking plant is pollinated by sunbirds, which belong to an endangered species. Attempts have been made to transfer the parrot's beak to other pollinators, but none of the experiments conducted since 2008 have been successful.
6. Campion (Silene Tomentosa)
A very rare flowering plant that grows high on the rocks in Gibraltar. The campion reaches a height of 40 cm and has flowers whose color varies from pink to light purple. By 1992, the scientific community outside Gibraltar considered it extinct, but in 1994 a single specimen of the campion was discovered. It is currently cultivated in the Royal Botanic Gardens of London as well as the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens.
5. Jade Vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys)
This beautiful blue-greenish flower is native to the Philippine rainforest. It can grow up to 18 cm in length. Deforestation has destroyed its habitat and the plant is now considered endangered. The jade vine is difficult to grow in captivity due to the lack of a natural pollinator - bats.
4. Kadupul (Epiphyllum Oxypetalum)
This rare and beautiful flower grows in Sri Lanka, India, Japan, China and several Latin American countries. Kadupul also has a second name - "Queen of the Night" and is associated with many legends. It has spiritual significance for Buddhists in Sri Lanka, who believe that this flower is given to Buddha by the serpentine gods of Nagas. Kadupul blooms only at night and mysteriously withers until dawn. In Japan, kadupul is called "beauty under the moon". In India, it is believed that anyone who prays to God while the kadupul blooms will get what he wants. The Chinese use this flower to describe someone who has had an impressive but very brief moment of glory, as the kadupul only lives for one night.
3. Rothschild's slipper (Rothschild's Slipper Orchid)
The Rothschild Orchid, one of the rarest flowers in the world, has beautiful red stripes and long side petals. It can only grow in the rainforests of Mount Kinabalu in the north of Borneo.
This flower is not only extremely rare, it also blooms once every 15 years. Since this type of orchid is very difficult to find, it has a high value on the black market, and the cost of one "shoe" goes up to $ 5,000. This makes Rothschild orchids a target for smugglers, who further threaten their already vulnerable existence.
2. Cadaveric flower (Amorphophallus Titanium)
In second place in the selection of the rarest flowers on Earth is Titanic Amorphophallus (aka "devilish language") - one of the largest and most fetid flower in the world... It reaches a height of almost 2 meters (a specimen is known to have grown up to 2.74 meters), weighs up to 100 kg and emits a smell comparable to amber from rotten eggs, to which the stench from rotten fish is mixed. Even the dark red color of the inflorescence reminds of a decaying piece of meat.
The blooming of the "cadaverous flower" lasts about two weeks, but it can be fully opened for only a couple of days. And this happens, on average, once every 10 years. Its pungent "fragrance", emitted during the growth period, attracts insects, which help pollinate the flower.
Previously, Amorphophallus titanic could only be found in the forests of Sumatra, and it was almost completely destroyed by people. Currently, it grows only in the greenhouse conditions of botanical gardens.
1. Middlemist red (Middlemist Camellia)
This beautiful and extremely rare flower looks like a bright red rose. Originally from China, it was brought to England by the gardener John Middlemist in 1804. And just in time, since later in his homeland he was completely destroyed. Currently, there are only 2 known specimens of the plant. One of them is located in the Botanical Gardens of New Zealand (and it is not known how he got there), and the other is in a greenhouse in England.
Excellent informative article, thanks