12 Jaw-dropping Flowers-Images and their Origin

Flowers are Nature’s Poetry

Delving into the Science of Art

Flowers are nature’s poetry.
As much as I enjoy nurturing greens around me,I love to photograph them when they peep from any corner of the world.
In this article I share some of the exotic blooms which I photographed overs years and intend to dwell not only on their aesthetics but also the science of this nature’s Art.

No	Name of Flowers to Find Below
1	Torch Ginger
2	Lotus
3	Desert Rose
4	Sweet William
5	Bougainvillea
6	Orange Jasmine
7	Rose-Grape
8	Pansy
9	Indian Blanket
10	West Indian Jasmine
11	Clock Vive
12	Peacock Flower

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”- Claude Monet

https://www.colourrepublic.com/blog/inspirational-flower-quotes

Torch Ginger
Scientific Name: etlingera elatior

This is a species of herbaceous perennial plant in the family Zingiberaceae; it is native to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and New Guinea.
The showy pink flowers are used in decorative arrangements, and are an important ingredient in food across South East Asia.
The species grows as a pseudo-stem from a rhizome; it takes about 18–22 days for the first leaf to grow from the rhizome.
The leafy shoot lasts for about 70 days and may reach a height of 3–4 metres. Its leaves are leathery and grow around 3 feet (0.91 m) long with a central groove.
The fibers of Etlingera elatior are strong.
The flower bud appears from the shoot after 30 days, it swells gradually and turns pink before blooming after more than 50 days.
The inflorescence is made of 20-25 layers of floral bracts and 3-4 layers of involuntary bracts at full bloom; it may have 90-120 true flowers inside.
In Bali, people use the white part of the bottom part of the trunk for cooking chilli sauce called “Sambal Bongkot”, and use the flower buds to make chilli sauce called “Sambal Kecicang”.
In Thailand, it is eaten in a kind of Thai salad preparation.
In Sundanese, it is known as Honje.

I photographed this Torch Ginger when I travelled to Bali.

Lotus
Scientific Name:Nelumbo nucifera

It is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae.
The lotus belongs in the order Proteales.

It is cultivated in nutrient-rich, loamy and often flooded soils, requiring warm temperatures and specific planting depths, with propagation via rhizomes, seeds, or tissue culture, and is harvested by hand or machine for stolons, flowers, seeds, and rhizomes over several months depending on climate and variety.
It has large leaves and flowers that can regulate their temperature, produces long-living seeds, and contains bioactive alkaloids.
Under favorable circumstances, the seeds of this aquatic perennial may remain viable for many years, with the oldest recorded lotus germination being from seeds 1,300 years old recovered from a dry lakebed in northeastern China. Therefore, the Chinese regard the plant as a symbol of longevity.
It has a very long history (c. 3,000 years) of being cultivated for its edible seeds and is commonly cultivated in water gardens. 
It is the national flower of India and unofficially Vietnam. It is a highly symbolic and versatile plant used in religious offerings (especially in Hinduism and Buddhism) and diverse culinary traditions across Asia, with its flowers, seeds, and rhizomes valued for spiritual, cultural, and nutritional purposes.
It holds deep cultural, spiritual, and religious significance across Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Chinese culture, symbolizing purity, enlightenment, spiritual awakening, and divine beauty, and is widely depicted in art, architecture, and literature.
The leaves of Nelumbo nucifera contain the flavonol miquelianin and alkaloids such as coclaurine and norcoclaurine, while the plant as a whole contains bioactive compounds including nuciferine and neferine. These constituents have been studied for their potential pharmacological effects, and the plant is used in traditional medicine and marketed as a functional food in various cultures.

I found our national flower in abundance every time I visited God’s Own Country, this is one from such a visit, in the plush green property of Taj Kumarokom, Kerala

Desert Rose
Scientific Name: Adenium Obesum

It is a poisonous species of flowering plant belonging to the tribe Nerieae of the subfamily Apocynoideae of the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. 
It is native to the Sahel regions south of the Sahara (from Mauritania and Senegal to Sudan), tropical and subtropical eastern and southern Africa, as well as the Arabian Peninsula.
Other names for the flower include Sabi star, kudu, mock azalea, and impala lily. Adenium obesum is a popular houseplant and bonsai in temperate regions.
It is an evergreen or drought-deciduous succulent shrub (which can also lose its leaves during cold spells, or according to the subspecies or cultivar).
It can grow to 0.12–5 m (0.39–16.40 ft) in height, with pachycaul (disproportionately large) stems and a stout, swollen basal caudex (a rootstock that protrudes from the soil).
The leaves are spirally arranged, clustered toward the tips of the shoots, simple entire, leathery in texture, 5–15 cm (2.0–5.9 in) long and 1–8 cm (0.39–3.15 in) broad.
The flowers are tubular, 2–5 cm (0.79–1.97 in) long, with the outer portion 4–6 cm (1.6–2.4 in) diameter with five petals, resembling those of other related genera such as Plumeria and Nerium.
The flowers tend to be red and pink, often with a whitish blush outward of the throat.

This photo of adenium obesum is from my own collection of flowering plants.

Sweet William
Scientific Name: dianthus barbetus

Dianthus is a genus of about 340 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native mainly to Europe and Asia, with a few species in north Africa and in southern Africa, and one species (D. repens) in arctic North America.
The species are mostly herbaceous perennials, a few are annual or biennial, and some are low subshrubs with woody basal stems.
The leaves are opposite, simple, mostly linear and often strongly glaucous grey green to blue green.
The flowers have five petals, typically with a frilled or pinked margin, and are (in almost all species) pale to dark pink.
One species, D. knappii, has yellow flowers with a purple centre. Some species, particularly the perennial pinks, are noted for their strong spicy fragrance.

This beautiful flower cluster in also from my collection of flowers from my terrace garden.

Bougainvillea
Scientific Name: bougainvillea

It is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees belonging to the family, Nyctaginaceae. They are native to Mexico,Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Argentina. There are between 4 and 22 species in the genus.
The inflorescence consists of large colourful sepal-like bracts which surround three simple waxy flowers, gaining popularity for the plant as an ornamental.
The plant is named after explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), after it was documented on one of his expeditions.

The species grow 1 to 12 metres (3 to 39 ft) tall, scrambling over other plants with their spiky thorns.
They are evergreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is a dry season. The leaves are alternate, simple ovate-acuminate, 4–13 cm (1.6–5.1 in) long and 2–6 cm (0.79–2.4 in) broad.
The actual flower of the plant is small and generally white, but each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts with the bright colours associated with the plant, including pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow. 
Bougainvillea glabra is sometimes called “paper flower” because its bracts are thin and papery. The fruit is a narrow five-lobed achene.

This ethereal piece of natural beauty is also photographed from my personal collection of greens.

Orange Jasmine
Scientific Name: Murraya paniculata

Commonly known as orange jasmine, orange jessamine, china box, cosmetic barktree, or mock orange, is a species of shrub or small tree in the family Rutaceae and is native to South Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia.
It has smooth bark, pinnate leaves with up to seven egg-shaped to elliptical leaflets, fragrant white or cream-coloured flowers and oval, orange-red berries containing hairy seeds.
Murraya paniculata is a tree that typically grows to a height of 7 m (23 ft) but often flowers and forms fruit as a shrub, and has smooth pale to whitish bark.
It has pinnate leaves up to 170 mm (6.7 in) long with up to seven egg-shaped to elliptical or rhombus-shaped. The leaflets are glossy green and glabrous, 25–100 mm (0.98–3.94 in) long and 12–50 mm (0.47–1.97 in) wide on a petiolule 2–6 mm (0.079–0.236 in) long.
The flowers are fragrant and are arranged in loose groups, each flower on a pedicel is 1–1.5 mm (0.039–0.059 in) long.
There are five (sometimes four) sepals about 1 mm (0.039 in) long and five (sometimes four) white or cream-coloured petals 13–18 mm (0.51–0.71 in) long. and the fruit is an oval, glabrous, orange-red berry 12–14 mm (0.47–0.55 in) long containing densely hairy seeds.
Flowering occurs from June to March in Australia, and the fruit ripen between January and October. In the northern hemisphere flowering occurs from April to October and fruit ripen from April to February.

This Orange Jasmine is amongst the very few I brought home early in my green-nurturing days.

It is a species of epiphytic flowering plant, of the family Melastomataceae, native to the Philippines.
The plant grows up to 3 m tall, with opposite, firm, leathery leaves, which grow to 20–30 cm long in an ovate shape with a short point.
The flowers grow in panicles up to 50 cm long, with ovid pink bracts.
The individual flowers are up to 25 mm in size, and are pink, red or violet. The fruits are violet, fleshy berries, about 1 cm wide.
In the Philippines M. magnifica grows in the forks of large trees.
It is an epiphyte, which is a plant that grows on other trees but does not withdraw its food from those trees as parasites do.
As a fertilized seed, the plant initially finds itself deposited, or landing, into an area of accumulated leaf debris, moss and other plant detritus in the crook of a larger tree or plant. From there, it sprouts new growth and begins to root and anchor itself, drawing nutrition from the decaying detritus around its base.
In temperate zones, medinillas must be grown as indoor houseplant specimens or kept under protection all year round, as they will not survive temperatures dropping below 15 °C (59 °F).
In USDA hardiness zones 10–12, it is possible to keep them outside all year, albeit under protection from excess hot sun, wind and cold.
The plant requires high humidity levels, and prefers bright but indirect light, with shading and protection from the sun (especially at the hottest time of the day).
It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society‘s Award of Garden Merit.

I photographed this exquisite gift of nature in the plush boundaries of Taj Munnar, Kerala.

Pansy
Scientific Name: viola × wittrockiana

It is a type of polychromatic large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is derived by hybridization from several species in the section Melanium (“the pansies”) of the genus Viola, particularly V. tricolor, a wildflower of Europe and western Asia known as heartsease.
of Viola × wittrockiana,V. tricolor var. hortensis DC. refers to a horticultural variety of wild pansy (V. tricolor without interspecific hybridization) that had been illustrated in Flora Danica in 1777 before the existence of Viola × wittrockiana.
The flower is 5 to 8 centimetres (2 to 3 in) in diameter and has two slightly overlapping upper petals, two side petals, and a single bottom petal with a slight beard emanating from the flower’s center.
These petals are usually white or yellow, purplish, or blue. The plant may grow to 23 cm (9 in) in height, and prefers sun to varying degrees and well-draining soils.

This colourful viola is one of my winter favourite which I photographed from one of my personal possessions.

Indian Blanket
Scientific Name: gaillardia pulchella 

Gaillardia pulchella (firewheel, Indian blanket, Indian blanketflower, or sundance) is a North American species of short-lived perennial or annual flowering plants in the sunflower family.
The branching stem of G. pulchella is hairy and upright, growing to 60 centimetres (24 inches) tall.
The leaves are alternate, mostly basal, 4–8 cm (1+⁵⁄₈–3+¹⁄₈ in) long, with edges smooth to coarsely toothed or lobed. It has a hairy stem, simple or branched near the base, where the leaves are essentially located towards the bottom of the plant.
The pinwheel, daisy-like inflorescences are 4–6.5 cm in diameter, vividly colored with red, orange and yellow and is surrounded by 10 to 20 ray florets up to 2 cm; the ligule has three lobes.
The central disc florets of the flower head tend to be more red-violet, with the outer ray florets being yellow.
In one variety, almost the entire flower is red, with only the barest tips of the petals touched with yellow. It typically blooms from May to July, but does so practically year-round in some areas.
The fruit is an achene, almost pyramidal, hairy, and prolonged by a pappus 5 to 8 millimetres (³⁄₁₆ to ⁵⁄₁₆ in) in length.
Native to Northern Mexico, this plant generally lives in the sandy plains and deserts of the south of the North American continent.
It is common along the roads and prefers sandy soils. It can also grow on vacant lots in urban areas, but generally below 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) above sea level.
The plant is a larval host to the bordered patch butterfly (Chlosyne lacinia) and the painted schinia moth (Schinia volupia), which feed upon its foliage.

I encountered this vivacious flowers in a rather dry zone of Durgapur, West Bengal, which resembles its natural habitat in many ways.

West Indian Jasmine
Scientific Name: Ixora

Ixora is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It is the only genus in the tribe Ixoreae. It consists of tropical evergreen trees and shrubs and holds around 544 species. Though native to the tropical and subtropical areas throughout the world, its centre of diversity is in Tropical Asia.
Ixora also grows commonly in subtropical climates in the United States, such as Florida where it is commonly known as West Indian jasmine.
Ixora is Latinized from Sanskrit Ishwara, one of the names of the Hindu god Shiva.
The genus was formally created by Linnaeus in 1753.
The plants possess leathery leaves, ranging from 3 to 6 inches in length, and produce large clusters of tiny flowers in the summer.
Members of Ixora prefer acidic soil, and are suitable choices for bonsai. It is also a popular choice for hedges in parts of South East Asia.
In tropical climates, they flower year round and are commonly used in hindu worship, as well as in ayurveda and Indian folk medicine.
In Brazil, fungal species Pseudocercospora ixoricola was found to be causing leaf spots on Ixora coccinea. 

This beautifully decorative flower has been a part of my garden collection for several years, blooming in clusters of flaming orange, shining bright and glorious under the yellow sun.

Clock Vine
Scientific Name:Thunbergia grandiflora 

Thunbergia grandiflora is an evergreen vine in the family Acanthaceae. 
It is native to China, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indochina and Myanmar and widely naturalised elsewhere.
Common names include Bengal clockvine, Bengal trumpet, blue skyflower, blue thunbergia, blue trumpetvine, clockvine, skyflower and skyvine.
Plants may grow to about 20 metres in height and have a long root system with a deep tap root, that can be as large as a small car.
The stalked, opposite leaves, which have a rough surface, are quite variable in shape.
They may be triangular or ovate and the margins may be toothed, lobed or entire.
Length is up to 200 mm and width is up to 60 mm, which are typically smaller than the very similar T. laurifolia.
The blue to mauve flowers are about 8 cm across with a 4 cm long tube that is pale yellow inside.
These are followed by pods containing seeds that are ejected several metres upon ripening. Plants also reproduce from segments that are washed down watercourses.
The species has become a serious environmental weed in Australia on disturbed land along watercourses and in the wet tropics where it smothers other vegetation.
It is commonly seen north of Sydney where it has been cultivated for many year.

This again was found in Kerala, the land of exotic, in the verdant property of Taj Hotel, Kovalam

Peacock Flower
Scientific Name: caesalpinia pulcherrima 

 It is a species of flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae, native to the tropics and subtropics of the Americas. It could be native to the West Indies, but its exact origin is unknown due to widespread cultivation.
It is a shrub growing to 3 m tall.
In climates with few to no frosts, this plant will grow larger and is semievergreen. In Hawaii this plant is evergreen and grows over 5 m tall. Grown in climates with light to moderate freezing, it will die back to the ground during the winter, but will rebound in mid- to late spring. This species is more sensitive to cold than others.
The leaves are bipinnate, 20–40 cm long, bearing three to 10 pairs of pinnae, each with six to 10 pairs of leaflets 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm broad.
The flowers are borne in racemes up to 20 cm long, each flower with five yellow, orange, or red petals. The fruit is a pod 6–12 cm long.
Caesalpinia pulcherrima is the most widely cultivated species in the genus Caesalpinia.
It is a striking ornamental plant, widely grown in domestic and public gardens in warm climates with mild winters, and has a beautiful inflorescence in yellow, red, and orange.
Its small size and the fact that it tolerates pruning well allows it to be planted in groups to form a hedgerow; it can be also used to attract hummingbirds.

Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th-century artist, encountered this plant in the Dutch colony of Surinam. In her work, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Merian recorded that African slaves and native Indian populations used the flos pavonis or peacock flower as an abortifacient in their practice of traditional medicine. 

She wrote:
“The Indians, who are not treated well by their Dutch masters, use the seeds to abort their children, so that their children will not become slaves like they are.
The black slaves from Guinea and Angola have demanded to be well treated, threatening to refuse to have children. They told me this themselves”.

Rare to find these beauties around us, I photographed this in my immediate neighbourhood.

Flowers don’t worry about how they’re going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light, and that makes them beautiful.” – Jim Carrey

https://www.1800flowers.com/articles/flower-facts/inspirational-flower-quotes

Visit this video for more on nature’s beauty as I compiled!

For more on flowers/photography:
Bloomgale-Letter From Nature
Abstract Mind Finds Free Way on Shillong Road Because the I Saw Red

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