Gardens Blog
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Hamelia patens (Rubiaceae) Origin: Tropical and subtropical Americas Butterfly gardens are getting more and more popular these days; there is something very special about watching colorful insects flutter around the garden. One of the best plant choices to attract...
Wild banyantree; short-leaved fig (fig family) Origin: Florida, Mexico, Caribbean, Central America south to Paraguay One of the most tropical sights that Florida has to offer is that of a banyan, the common name for Ficus trees which produce aerial roots. Hawaii and...
Origins: New World The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens prides itself on its living collection of epiphytic plants, the largest in the world, as well as its standing in the world of taxonomy and systematics. So you may have heard here before that we stress, when speaking...
Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow (Potato Family) Origin: New World Tropics Brunfelsia is a genus of beautiful blooming shrubs and small trees. Many species have a peculiar habit of color-changing flowers. The most common of these are B. australis and B. grandiflora, which...
Lychee (Soapberry Family) Origin: China There are so many advantages to living in Florida, one of them is fresh tropical fruit. Just as many northerners have a summer tomato garden in the backyard, many people wouldn’t consider their home Floridian without their...
Chains of Glory (Verbena family) Origin: Thailand Our featured plant this time around is rare, even in cultivation. Clerodendrum schmidtii is a shrub to small tree, multi-stemmed, with a weeping habit. Each winter it grows long, pendent, dark red racemes, eighteen...
Medinilla cummingii (Melastomataceae) Chandelier Tree (Melastoma Family) Origin: Philippines Here at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, we are really proud of our Tropical Conservatory. It is the starting point for most guests’ tour of the garden, and many return to...
Coffea arabica (Rubiaceae) Arabica coffee, mountain coffee (Coffee family) Origin: Ethiopia, now cultivated worldwide Coffee, one of the leading cash crops and one of the most popular drug plants of the last few hundred years (along with tea and tobacco,) may be this...
Tacca integrifolia ‘Nivea’ (Dioscoreaceae) White Bat Plant (Yam family) Origin: Tropical Asia Florida’s human population is a lot like its plant population; there are a few natives, and a lot of transplanted exotics. It is always a joy to see someone who has just...
Helianthus spp. (Asteraceae) Sunflowers (Sunflower Family) Origin: North America What is a flower? A flower is a plant’s sexual organ, typically consisting of male and female parts and the calyx and corolla. Some blooms which we see and consider as a single flower are...