Page 10 - Tropical glasshouses
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Nepenthes ampullaria,
a vegetarian pitcher plant
11 Pitcher plant Nepenthes sp. A number of species of pitcher plants grow on Borneo and Sumatra, in places where there is little available food, such as in peat bogs or in trees. The plants have found many clever ways of obtaining nutrients, such as insect-catching pitchers
and leaf-consuming mini ‘compost containers’.
12 staghorn fern Platycerium sp.
The specimens in the hanging baskets display the ‘nest leaves’ to their best advantage. Moisture and humus gather in these leaves. In the wild these ferns grow high up in trees, so they cannot draw
food and water from the ground. Star-shaped hairs
give a grey bloom to the pitchfork-shaped green leaves, and prevent the plant from drying out.
Go back to the corridor and turn right to the collection of 13 tropical ferns. Notice the pretty patterns made by the sporangia!
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