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Exotic Flowers of the Rain Forest

Rain forests are troves of biodiversity. Scientists have studied only 1 percent of the plants of the rain forest, yet the tiny slice of the rain forest that has fallen under scientific scrutiny is vital to the developed world. About a quarter of pharmaceutical products are derived from rain forest plants. Although just 200 of more than 3,000 rain forest fruits are actively cultivated, plants that originated in rain forests supply more than 80 percent of the food consumed in developed countries.

Vanilla Orchid
- Orchids are globally cultivated flowers, known for their exotic shapes and delicate beauty. Some orchids have value because of the commodities that they produce. The vanilla orchid, for example, generates seed pods that are cured to create flavorful vanilla beans. It originated in the rain forests of Mexico and South America. Recognizing the potential of the flavor, the Mayans began to cultivate the orchids. The original orchid has branched into several varieties that are named for the regions in which they grow. These exotic flowers produce rich vanillas that food scientists have tried to capture in a synthetic. However, natural vanilla is still a coveted product around the world.
Rafflesia Flower
- The rafflesia flower grows in Indonesian rain forests. With a diameter of 3 feet, it is the world's largest flower. It can weigh up to 15 pounds. While most flowers lure pollinating insects with bright colors and sweet nectars, the rafflesia smells like rotting meat. The same insects that swarm around corpses flock to the flowers and spread their pollen throughout the rain forest. The flowers, which have reddish petals speckled with white, only bloom for five to seven days.
Banana Flowers
- Banana flowers bloom on banana trees in tropical forests around the world. The banana tree blends the familiar and the exotic. The fruit of the tree is a common produce item around the world. However, the bananas that stock grocery shelves in the United States and Europe are overwhelmingly of one variety: the Cavendish. In the 1960s, it replaced the Gros Michel variety when Panama disease overran the world's banana plantations, withering the fruits. Though commercial bananas are uniform, there are hundreds of banana varieties, each with its own flavor, texture and coloring. In some parts of the world. you can peel back a bluish silver skin to reveal the sweet, creamy, vanilla-flavored flesh of the Blue Java, the ice cream banana. This is just one of the exotic banana varieties that await discovery.

Nature