Top 10 Most Bizarre and Exotic Flowers

Putting
together a list of the world’s most beautiful flowers is a sure-fire
recipe for controversy. Everything from scent to sentimentality
influences people’s favorite flowers, and beauty is, after all, in the
eye of the beholder. With that in mind, what follows is a list of the
most bizarre and exotic flowers in the world, some of which are anything
but beautiful.

Though the blue rose is certainly lovely and
undoubtedly exotic, it barely makes this list because a true ‘blue’ rose
doesn’t currently exist in nature. In
the past, florists have been able to produce artificial blue roses by
allowing naturally white roses to absorb blue dye, causing the petals to
turn a royal blue or indigo color. However, in 2004, a team of Japanese
scientists unraveled the riddle of rose genetics, figuring out how to
“turn off” the rose gene that prevented the production of the blue
pigment “delphinidin.” As a result, by incorporating iris and pansy
genes into rose DNA, the team has been able to produce naturally-grown
blue roses, which currently present with a distinctive lilac color. To
date, the genetically-altered blue roses are rather pricey, being
marketed to the lucrative cut flower industry.

Jasmine. Roses. Lillacs. These flowers have become beloved around the
globe over for their fragrant scents, which form the basis for perfumes
the world over. While the Sherry Baby’s scent will
probably never be mass-distributed as a perfume, its aroma is no less
beloved. This orchid, which sports brick-red blooms and whose growth is
restricted only by the amount of space it is afforded, smells strikingly
like chocolate. With fragrances said to range from mint-chocolate to
vanilla-chocolate, the Sherry Baby has become extremely popular as
a houseplant in recent years, due largely to the fact that it’s one of
the easiest orchids for casual collectors to cultivate. Unlike other
orchids, who have a reputation for being extremely finicky in
cultivations, the Sherry Baby requires only a weekly watering and a
sunny window to thrive.

You might think a flower that looks and smells like flatulence or
decomposing flesh doesn’t deserve to be called “a flower” at all, unless
you’re a carrion beetle or flesh-eating fly. The African Starfish,
which grows in Southern Africa and sometimes in California, is
approximately 8-10 inches high, with a sickening stench that either
evokes rotting flesh or feces. A bright pink color with tiny white hairs
that are meant to simulate mold growing on deceased animal flesh, the
African Starfish attracts feces and flesh-loving insects.

Far less nauseating than the African Starfish is the delicate Bladder Campion,
which is found growing wild along roadsides and in fields in the
American Midwest. The Bladder Campion or “bladder flower,” as it is
sometimes called, reaches between 8 and 24 inches in height and is
easily recognizable because of its balloon-like calyx and pale green or
white flowers. The Bladder Campion is believed to have as many as 10
stamens and 3 styles, as well as dark green or red veins on the calyx
itself. Though the flowers only bloom for a month or so, the distinctive
bladder of the plant can last for nearly an entire growing season.

At first glance, the Viceroy looks like any other
tulip growing in a city parkway or someone’s garden. But it’s the story
behind the Viceroy that makes it one of the world’s most exotic flowers.
Though usually identified with Holland, tulips are believed to have
originated in modern-day Turkey. In 1593, a Dutch botanist named Carolus
Clusius brought several bulbs to Holland from Constantinople in order
to establish a medicinal garden. His neighbors, aggravated by Clusius’
aversion to selling the exitic-looking flowers, broke into his garden
and stole his bulbs. By the 1630s, tulips had become a status symbol of
the rich in Holland, fetching astronomical prices at auction. In 1636,
the bulbs of the Viceroy tulip, a marbled crimson and white flower, was
sold at auction for the equivalent of $1250 in today’s US currency.
Quite a feat, considering that the average Dutch worker earned
approximately one-fourth of that price in an entire year. By 1637, the
tulip bubble had burst, and the once-coveted flowers were worth only
one-one hundredth of their original prices.

Native to Asia and North America, dainty Bleeding Heart
takes almost two years to completely mature, eventually measuring 2-3
feet long. It’s one-inch, heart-shaped petals bloom in the spring and
come in a variety of different colors, including rose pink, red, and
white. These perennials are hardier than they look, and some species can
maintain their blooms for an entire summer. As Bleeding Hearts’ vivid
colors and unusual blooms are especially striking against a wooded
background, they have become the favorites of casual gardeners in
woodland borders all across the world.

Famous for its central roles in both Susan Orlean’s book “The Orchid Thief and Charlie Kaufman’s movie Adaptation,
the rare ghost orchid bears the distinction of having millions of fans
who have probably never actually seen their favorite flower in real
life. Native to Cuba and the Florida Everglades, the Ghost Orchid blooms
from an epiphyte, a tangled mass of stems that wrap around a tree
trunk. Also known as the “palm polly” or the “white frog orchid,” the
Ghost Orchid was discovered by Jean Jules Linden in Cuba in 1844. Since
then, it has proven extremely difficult to cultivate, being happiest
growing 6 feet up or higher on pond-apple trees. Due to its unusual
shape, the Ghost Orchid is pollinated solely by the giant sphinx moth,
the only insect with a long enough proboscis.

At first glance, it’s difficult to even see this flower without its bloom, so adept is the living stone plant
at blending in with the pebbles in its surroundings. The plant consists
of a two-lobed, conical body, made up of two fused and thickened
leaves. The short stem in between the two leaves is generally not
visible. When the Living Stone Plant, generally found in West, South,
and Central Africa, flowers, the bright white or yellow daisy-like bloom
erupts from the tight fissure joining the two leaves together. The
seeds inside the flower are wholly contained within a 4-8 chambered
fruiting capsule.

So exotic and rare is this flower, there was substantial debate about
whether it was its own species or some unknown species of orchid.
Discovered in 1899 in Burma, the Parrot Flower was
identified at the Royal Gardens at Kew in London in 1901. Believed to
grow only in Burma and Northern Thailand, the fragile bloom has been
extremely difficult to cultivate, probably due to the fact that its odd
shape requires that it have a local natural pollinator to procreate.

Related to the popular calla lily, the Titan Arum is
one flower no bride would want at her wedding, and not just because of
its size. With its unbranched inflorescence (the central structure upon
which the flower is arranged) reaching up to 10 feet tall, the Titan
Arum is one of the largest “flowers” in the world. But the Titan Arum’s
notoriety comes not from its gigantic size, but because of its
nauseating stench. Known around the world as the “corpse flower,” the
Titan Arum exists in many botanical gardens, but grows naturally only on
the edges of rainforests, near grasslands, in its native Sumatra. The
plant, discovered in 1878 by Odardo Beccari, flowers rarely in nature
and even more rarely in cultivation. Its unique smell, which resembles
that of a rotting human corpse, is believed to act in conjunction with
the Arum’s bright red color to attract insects that would normally feed
on decomposing mammal carcasses. Interestingly, the plant’s temperature
hovers around that of a human body, which is thought to help the scent
travel further. The plant was christened “Titan Arum” by BBC television
narrator and naturalist Sir David Attenborough during his narration of
“The Life of Plants,” as he thought repeatedly saying the word
“amorphophallus” was inappropriate for his audience. The Ghost Orchid is
currently protected under both Florida state and federal law; wild
Ghost Orchids cannot be removed from their native soil.

These are all so unique! I love the Bleeding Heart the best. At first, I couldn't tell the Living Stone Plants were actually plants until I read the text ;o

Thanks for sharing! ^_^