The white batflower (Tacca integrifolia) is the most unusual flower in our garden. It has just produced its third flowering of this season and I spent 5 minutes capturing its strangeness to join Desleyjane in her weekly challenge “regular random”.
As you can see this is one plant that I have left in a pot and it loves it in this shady corner being watched over by a rather elfin looking Buddha.
It might look like a normal plant, right up until it starts to flower. When it does, the plant unfurls some of the strangest and most amazing flowers in the plant kingdom. Beneath the clusters of purplish flowers hang long bracts that can reach a foot in length, like whiskers. Above the flowers flare two light colored bracts like bat wings.Look at the beautiful purple veining through the top bracts that give it a distinctive bat-like look.
The dark purple flowering parts cluster together below the bracts.The flowers can last for weeks and certainly stops people in their tracks when they first see it.
The leaves are a rich vibrant green and quite tough and leathery. It is also a favourite of mine because it never seems to have any problems and only asks for occasional watering during dry periods.
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Would you like to join in the RegularRandom brigade? Here’s how:
- choose a subject or a scene
- spend five minutes photographing it – no more!
- try to not interfere with the subject, instead see it from many angles, look through something at it, change the light that’s hitting it
- have fun! (sure did!)
- tag your post #regularrandom and ping back to this post
They are so unusual. My mum has a couple too. I love them.
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I’m guessing your Mum must be a keen gardener
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She is. 🙂
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I have never seen one before. Very beautiful!
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Beautiful in its strangeness.
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Yes very unusual. They are fascinating.
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and they stay flowering for so long
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I had a look at websites and appear to be hard to grow from seed or even rhizomes. I will just have to admire yours from afar 😁
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They are very specific as to the climate they will grow in, must be hot and humid.
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Yes in this country a green house or heated conservatory
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Heated conservatory would do it.
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🌸❤️🌺🏵️💐😀
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Just incredible! All the better for not needing too much care and attention!!
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Always a bonus. There is a black one but it is a bit more fussy and mine died
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😟
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That thing is weird. I would not grow one myself, but would like to get Brent to grow it, as well as the black bat flower. They would be compelling in his Jungalow garden.
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It would be a good addition for Brent’s garden, but it has to have hot, humid weather. I did have a black one but it seems more difficult to grow and I lost it
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Wow! If it was not happy there, it would not be happy in Brent’s garden. It is warmer there when it is cool here, but does not get very hot in the summer. It is somewhat humid because it is watered, but the outside air that blows through is not at all humid. Perhaps that is why I have never seen it in Los Angeles.
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Yes it likes humidity
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Goodness, but that is one extraordinary plant. Though I now feel quite familiarised with all its parts thanks to your gallery of shots.
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Extraordinary it is Tish, yet very easy to grow. But only in hot, humid climates it would wither away in your corner of the world…
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The image of shivering withering bat plant is slightly alarming…
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Haha yes it would get it’s whiskers quivering…
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Yikes!
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It’s fascinating, Pauline. 🙂 🙂
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It certainly is
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Gorgeous, I’ve never seen anything like it. I love the photo looking right inside, it looks like lots of tiny flowers within.
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Yes they are the flowers Gilly, aren’t they fascinating
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I know you have featured this oddity before PP, but I loved seeing it in more detail. A fascinating plant. I wonder if they have one in the tropical biome at Eden? Must have another visit and see.
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It is a true tropical Jude so it probably is there but if it isn’t in flower you would walk past it.
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Beautiful and fascinating to see. Quite the show pony in a way, but definitely a star attraction. I bet you look forward to seeing this one flower.
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Show pony is a good description
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Wow what an amazing plant! So many different parts and shapes and textures. Perfect for the RR treatment. Glad you had fun 😊
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Yes I’m enjoying joining in your challenge
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Excellent.
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What an amazing plant.
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It certainly is
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I love the color of the pedals, and blooms if you call them that. I’ve never seen it.
I meant to tell you the other day that that corn on the cob looking plant you shared with the waterfalls I think it was I’ve seen here, and made images of it more than once.
We have a lovely Australian Garden at UCSC ( University of California at Santa Cruz) that I visit once or twice a year that has them and many other native plants from your neck of the woods, but not your Bat Plant.
That would be neat to see.
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Hit send too soon. Anyway, apparently many of the native plants from Australia do really well here in our climate. In face a neighbor around the corner has an Australian native plant growing in her yard that I first saw at the UCSC garden years ago. The neighbors plant is doing really well. It’s huge, and gorgeous. 🙂
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Yes I think some parts of America have similar climates to ours. The gum/eucalyptus trees do well over there
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We do! I was absolutely floored when reading the descriptions and info in the Australian Garden that our temperatures are Mediterranean! I was very surprised.
Southern California’s (like San Diego) temperature has been described to me as very much if not exactly like parts of Israel!
I could easily live in that climate. 🙂
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We are sub tropical, further south it is more like a Mediterranean climate. Apart from the humidity in summer this is a great climate
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Love your description “corn on the cob looking plant” very appropriate it is a Banksia names after the botanist Joseph Banks who was on Captain Cooks voyage that discovered Australia
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🙂
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