每日一花

A complete botanical profile of the Jade Vine: a critically endangered Philippine liana whose luminous jade-turquoise flowers — one of the rarest colors in the entire plant kingdom — hang in 3-metre racemes from old wood, and can only be pollinated by cave bats (Eonycteris spelaea) that approach from below. Wild populations are collapsing as both forest and bat roosts disappear.

A complete botanical profile of the Black Bat Flower: a Southeast Asian yam-family species whose jet-black bat-wing bracts span 30 cm and whose pendant bracteoles — up to 70 cm long — are the longest of any known flowering plant. The flower's true pollinator remains unconfirmed; carrion-scent mimicry is suspected.

A complete botanical profile of the King Protea: South Africa's national flower, whose massive dinner-plate-sized bloom is not a single flower but a capitulum of up to 200 individual florets ringed by modified leaves. The plant belongs to one of the world's oldest flowering-plant families (Proteaceae, ~95–120 million years old, Gondwanan in origin) and survives repeated fynbos wildfires via a dense underground lignotuber that sprouts anew within weeks of a burn.