The Naples Botanical Garden is a wonderful place. On 170 acres, it, as their website says, "conserves the plants and habitats of the tropics, cultivates beauty, offers knowledge, and inspires the protection of nature."
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| Naples Botanical Garden, Naples, Florida |
I visited in February of 2020, returning home just as the covid pandemic closed down travel.
Walking in, I was met by this wonderful vine, clock vine flower, Thunbergia mysorensis in the acanthus family, Acanthaceae.
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| clock vine flower, Thunbergia mysorensis |
I am very fond of vines . Though we take them for granted, they are a highly successful plant life form that is not found everywhere. Vines need something to climb on because they do not support themselves. So grasslands, deserts, and tundra, places with only low plants, have few vines. As you enter forests, vines become more numerous. In really big, always wet forests, there are many species of vines, some with spectacular flowers and with other intriguing adaptations for attracting pollinators and dispersing their seeds. [In the US, vine is a general word for climbing plant, I am using it that way.]
[Forests at high lattitudes or altitudes, for example the vast forests of Canada are not rich in vines because, with a few exceptions, thin plant tissues above ground in very cold conditions are damaged or killed. Vines in places with a severe winter are often killed back to the roots each winter, which keeps them from getting very big. The tropics is much more permissive and many species with different ancestries have evolved into tropical vines.]
Here then was another vine I liked a lot, sky vine, the Garden called it, Thunbergia grandiflora. (Same genus as the clock vine flower? Wow!) This photos doesn't do it justice, it can form great cascades of the lovely blue flowers. The flowers are about 3" across.
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| sky vine, Thunbergia grandiflora |
I worked on plants with extrafloral nectaries which provide sugar water for insects, especially ants, visiting the plants. The ants take caterpillars and other tiny animals as prey, so the plant benefits by attracting ants. (more about extrafloral nectaries link). Many vines, expecially tropical vines, have extrafloral nectaries, so I paid special attention to tropical morning glories, Thunbergia species, climbing peas, and others. I love seeing them in botanical gardens looking healthy and well-cared for.
Another pretty tropical plant, Turnera ulmifolia, called buttercup bush, Cuban buttercup or yellow alder (in its own family, Turneraceae; it is not related to other buttercups or other alders); I always just called it turnera. Various times and places I have enjoyed watching butterflies visiting its bright flowers.
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| Turnera ulmifolia |
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| pretty paths |
Look! A lizard!
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I'm from a lizardless suburban area; lizards are a treat. I have no idea which one it is.
Of course people love seeing harmless or pretty animals. The Naples Botanical Garden had a butterfly garden and I lingered there, enjoying the butterflies
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| black swallowtail butterfly on flowers of Stachytarpheta jamaicensis (verbena family, Verbenaceae), common name blue porterweed |
Botanical gardens showplace exotic plants that can grow in the area, as the vines above, and also local plants. I think the local collections used to be of lesser importance since "everyone" knew the local plants. But as developed areas expand and natural areas are reduced, fewer and fewer people have seen local ecosystems and including them in a botanical garden is more important. Naples had several areas for me, a visitor from quite different ecosystems, to wander through and admire the local plants.
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| native plants |
The native plant areas gave a look of the native habitat but also named the plants, which is very helpful.
Sea grapes, Coccoloba uvifera (buckwheat family, Polygonaceae) is a shrub or small tree of the coasts. Easy to learn to recognize from the distinctive leaves. The fruits do resemble grapes. I'd identified it before, but the plant labels helped me remember it.
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| Sea grapes, Coccoloba uvifera |
And this one I didn't know, the common palmetto, also called sabal palm, Sabal palmetto (palm family, Arecaceae). Its native to the subtropical coast of the eastern US (Florida to southeastern North Carolina and west to the eastern tip of Texas) and into the Caribbean and on Mexico's Caribbean coast. A very handsome plant.
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| common palmetto, Sabal palmetto |
Interesting things were growing along the path. The red is likely powderpuff plant, Caliandra, of which there are many species.
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| along the path, Naples Botanical Garden |
The Garden also had a collection of food plants,
from kale
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| kale, Brassica oleracea |
This was a planting of lots of vegetables, behind the fine-looking kale you can see tomato leaves and feathery leaves that are likely dill.
to a mango tree full of ripening mangos (Mangifera indica, cashew family Anacardiaceae)
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| mango, Mangifera indica. See the small fruits? |
to a plant I wanted to see, cinnamon. Cinnamon comes from a number of different trees, this one was labeled Cinnamomum zeylandicum (from Sri Lanka, in the laurel family, Lauraceae). Cinnamon is made from the bark: dried pieces of bark they are cinnamon sticks, ground they become powdered cinnamon.
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| cinnamon Cinnamomum zeylandicum |
And more cool flowers, for example this starburst, Clerodendrum quadricloculare (mint family, Lamiaceae) a shrub or small tree from the Philippines and New Guinea.
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| starburst, Clerodendrum quadricloculare |
Sources: the internet, especially Wikipedia to check plant names; for common names, it is useful to say "Buy Turnera" and see what the names the plant-sellers are using; I also relied on the plant labels at Naples Botanical Garden.
For more on the distribution of vines (climbing plants) see Introduction in the paper in the link: link
Kathy Keeler, A Wandering Botanist
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