Exotic Beauty (56) : Bird's eye bush

Exotic Beauty (56) : Bird's eye bush

The past 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 an 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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In English also known as Mickey Mouse plant
Dutch name : Mickey Mouse plant
German name : Mickey Maus Pflanze
Latin name : Ochna kirkii

Country of origin : Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique

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Actually, the shot does not show the flowers of this plant, but its fruits.

When those fruits are ripe and black, they resemble Mickey Mouse’s ears (with a bit of fantasy). Hence the name of the plant..