Still As Life

Okay, so perhaps my prediction/hope for a big flood was slightly off as it has pretty much stopped raining and there are patches of blue sky here and there. The weather forecast is much the same through to Tuesday. So unless we are really lucky, it isn't going to flood. Oh well.

Dad has this really obscure plant in his yard called a Giant Bat Plant. They are from Malaysia, and dad's one seems to be really thriving, it's leaves are huge, the full 750mm by 350mm with no trouble at all.

With all the rain and humidity over the past couple of week's, it's not only come to flower, but it is going to have three flowers at once!

It has one fully open now, another will be near fully open tomorrow, and a third one that will be fully open within the next few days as well. These flowers last over a week each, so it will be quite stunning to see once it has all three of them out. The most I've seen it with at once was two and they only just overlapped by a day or two before the first one died.

As you can see in the photo's the flowers are very obscure. They have like a big white and purple leaf over the top of them which opens to reveal these obscure purple flowers and long whisker type fronds.

This flower comes out on a long stem above all of the large leaves.

I think part of the reason it does so well here is because it is a very tropical climate, and where it is located is well in the shade almost all day by a combination of larger tree's and in particular, reasonable sized fern fronds that allow some light through, but not in large quantities. It is also quite humid here most of the year round which to my understanding, Bat Plant's really like. Lismore is also generally quite wet compared to places even only two hours away from here, such as Brisbane, which also no doubt encourages it.

I'll get some more photo's over the next few days when the other two flowers are out. It should be really stunning, as you can probably imagine seeing just one flower.

Labels: special interest