TRAVEL | NATURE | FLOWERS | PLANTS | FLORA

The World Has a Neverending Variety Of Flowers

I know that we will never see them all.

While the Northern Hemisphere transitions into spring there is evidence of it happening everywhere. I’m currently back in Canada where the snow is melting and soon leaves will pop out on trees and flowers will start to spring up from the ground. It is an event that I am keenly anticipating since it has been many years since I experienced a true spring transition.

I can’t wait to see life burst forth and watch the birds, butterflies and bees do their business as they flit about on warm sunny days.

Here at Globetrotters, we have asked writers to tell us about flowers from around the world and we have already heard from many about their experiences. Whether they be visiting a flower farm, or witnessing desert blooms, the stories are varied and interesting. Michele Maize wrote our introduction post for the prompt this month:

During more than 5 years of full-time travel, we have spent most of our time in the tropical regions of our planet. First, we were in Central America and the Caribbean for 2 years, then we were in Eastern Africa for most of the following 2.5 years. The thing we loved the most about the tropics was the variety of plants that we would see.

The endless and incredible varieties.

Thankfully I love to take photos of flowers, and I often wonder what I am going to do with them all. But it’s moments like this where I’m glad that I did because I can now share them with others.

I’m not a scientist, and I am not into finding names for all of the flowers that we see, though I do know a few of them. But regardless of their names, one can not deny their beauty.

Thanks for joining me on a tour of our favorite blooms from around the world. Get ready for a vibrant and colorful display! I will warn you that there are A LOT of photos in this article! I have found it impossible to pick just a few:)

Costa Rica

I feel that it is appropriate to start at the beginning of our journey in 2017 in Costa Rica. Of course, Costa Rica is well known for its plant diversity and flora and fauna. I had already been to Costa Rica, so I knew full well what to expect, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t still amazed and inspired by it all.

Right away when you touch down in most tropical countries, you are greeted with fabulous floral arrangements. They always remind us that we certainly aren’t in Canada anymore. Flowers with seemingly impossible structures burst forth into the air and birds, bees and butterflies of endless varieties flit about while pollinating them and carrying on Mother Nature’s delicate process of life.

Hummingbirds are major pollinators in Costa Rica and there are 53 different species that are busily flying about.

Guatemala

Guatemala also has incredible plant variety and we loved the lush jungle landscape. Here we saw more varieties of delicate flowers and also saw many passion flowers, which, I have to say, are amongst my favorites.

Caribbean

During our time in the Caribbean, we came across many more tropical blooms, but the majority of our time there was spent volunteering at a botanical garden. You can imagine our interaction with flowers there.

The owner had an incredible orchid collection at the garden. They were all purchased overseas and imported into the country. I had no idea at the time but there are international laws that govern the harvesting and movement of orchids on our planet. I have no idea if these orchids were illegally transported, but they were sure beautiful.

I wrote more about our experience with the orchids in this article:

The owner of the garden claimed that there were up to 80 different orchid varieties scattered throughout the property. Every day was a new adventure as we watched them bloom and change throughout the almost 6 months we volunteered.

She also had an interesting cactus collection and many of them bloomed while we were there.

The owner of the garden told us that the flower above only blooms for 1–2 days, so once the bud started, we checked on it regularly to make sure that we didn’t miss it.

When it did bloom, it actually smelled like rotting flesh, and it attracted a specific blue fly that pollinated it. Sadly I didn’t have a great camera at that time, so I wasn’t able to get a good photo of the flies. But they were certainly unique and we only ever saw them on this flower while it was open.

Sure enough, after a couple of days, it had wilted and melted back into the soil below it.

One of our favorite flowers, though, was the Gloriosa, as pictured above. This one actually bloomed behind the house that we were staying in. These blooms also didn’t last very long so we kept a close eye on them. It’s almost impossible to comprehend how Mother Nature creates such delicate and complicated structures.

There were so many amazing flowers in this location!

Uganda

After our stint in the Caribbean, our travels found us over in Africa. Starting out in Morocco, we really didn’t see much for flowers because of its desert climate. The same can be said for Egypt, and Sudan as well. But then we flew to Uganda and the dense jungle landscape produced even more astounding blooms which we had never seen before.

Uganda certainly wins the prize for the most flowers that look like muppets. We saw some incredibly fuzzy flowers while there.

Again, there are those delicate stamens!

It’s always interesting to see insects intermingling with the flowers. From butterflies to bees, flies to beetles, we saw many when we were inspecting the blooms. Check out the first photo below. There was something crawling up the back of it that I never even noticed at the time!

Uganda has a savannah which also means that areas can be dry. But this doesn’t mean that the flowers don’t still bloom. I especially loved the little flowers that popped out of the cactus ground cover that we saw. It was fascinating that bunches of moss can grow next to cactuses.

Uganda was full of surprises!

Tanzania

Moving down through Tanzania we found some more incredible flowers. Tanzania is varied in its landscapes. While the central part is quite dry, the north and south of the country is lush. Here are a few blooms that we found in Tanzania, although there were hundreds more.

Zambia

We traveled by bus from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, to Lusaka, Zambia on 2 buses that went for over 20 hours. I don’t necessarily recommend that route, it was grueling, to say the least.

Southern Zambia is home to Victoria Falls and the entire region is lush and tropical. While there were many, many flowers there, we didn’t see too many that were very different than what I have already outlined above.

But we did see one very unique bloom — a type of pitcher plant — and it was an exciting discovery. Maybe Ronald Smit knows more about these, but I think they are carnivorous plants as they have a structure inside that catches insects for food.

Some flower statistics

While writing this article, I was curious about how many flower species exist in the world, and after asking google, it looks like there are more than 400 000.

Surely more than one can ever see in their lifetime!

I also learned that the country that holds the biggest variety of flowers is Brazil. According to this website:

It is the country with the greatest biodiversity of flora and fauna on the planet. Brazil has the highest number of species of known mammals and freshwater fish, and more than 50,000 species of trees and bushes, it takes first place in plant diversity. Even so, the loss of tropical forest (due to uncontrolled agriculture and logging) is still on the rise.

I was surprised that the countries that I have visited didn’t even make it on the world’s top 10 list. It’s hard to imagine how incredible they must be, but I guess I just have to make a point to go check them out.

Thanks for joining me on a tour of our favorite flower blooms over the past 5 years. I can’t wait to write a similar post in 5 years with all new blooms to report on:)

Other Globetrotters have been reporting on their blooms as well:

Kim Baker takes us on a tour of some of her favorites and what they are used for:

Brad Yonaka teaches us about orchids in Borneo. I could see a few that I recalled from the Botanical Garden that we worked at.

And Anne Bonfert also shares some of the beautiful flowers that she has seen around the world.

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