Originally from Madagascar, the Ravenala is currently planted worldwide in tropical areas. As a result, this special exotic reminds inevitably of holidays. The common name “Travelers tree” is due to the myth that travelers would survive due to the accumulated moisture in the leaf bases.
Het Loo Palace is a palace in the Netherlands. The private garden is situated in the back. It is often mislabeled the Versailles of Holland but actually serves to show more differences than similarities.
Leonhart Fuchs was a German physician and one of the three founding fathers of botany, along with Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock
The titan arum, also called corpse flower, is known for its massive foul-smelling inflorescence (cluster of flowers). The plant is endemic to the steep hillsides of rainforests in western Sumatra but is cultivated in botanic gardens worldwide.
Perhaps the most famous hemiepiphyte is the towering strangler fig tree which starts life as a tiny seed in the canopy. The roots grow down to the forest floor where they take root and begin to take nutrients from the soil. Gradually the roots wrap around the host tree, widen, and slowly form a lattice-work that surround the host's trunk. The fig's crown grows foliage which soon overshadows the tree. Eventually, the host tree dies leaving the fig with a hollow trunk-which is easily climbed thanks to the many openings in the trunk. Figs are often the only tree species remaining after forest clearing since their knotted and twisted wood is shunned by loggers.
Frederik Ruysch was a Dutch botanist and anatomist, remembered for his developments in anatomical preservation and the creation of dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts.
Jomon Sugi is a large cryptomeria tree located on Yakushima, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Japan. It is the oldest and largest of nearly 2,000 cryptomeria trees on the island and is estimated to be between 2,170 and 7,200 years old.