My Temple of Nature: Fauna Flowers

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Fauna Flowers

The other day on Facebook I saw a photo of a monkey orchid. It was beautiful and the face of the flower really did look like a monkey. I thought 'Hmmm I wonder how many other flowers are named after animals'. Here's what I found. Native to South Africa we have the Mickey Mouse plant. Okay so technically Mickey Mouse is just a cartoon character, but still...

Source: Wikipedia

Then there are plants in the yam family with blooms known as bat flowers. This is the black bat flower.

Source: Wikipedia

There is also the white bat flower. They are certainly beautiful, but do they look like bats to you?

Source: Wikipedia

From eastern Asia, we have toad lilies - several varieties.

Source: Wikipedia

From the Balkans and southern Europe we have the dragon flower or dragon arum, also known as the black dragon, the snake lily, and the stink lily. It supposedly smells like a dead carcass. Why? It is pollinated by flies and how better to attract them than smelling really bad.

Source: Wikipedia

Also from the arum family, anthuriums are sometimes called flamingo flowers.

Source: Wikipedia

I was really disappointed with the fawn lily - it doesn't look like a fawn at all. Wonder who named it? Of course, depending on the particular species it is also commonly called a trout lily, dog-tooth violet, adder's tongue, glacier lily, and dogtooth fawn lily.

Source: Wikipedia

It seems as though the folks who named the orchids were much more with it as far as naming the flower by an appropriate name. Like the fly orchid (native to Europe)...