Exotic Beauty (81) : Insulin plant

Exotic Beauty (81) : Insulin plant

Last year I made several visits to the conservatories of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium where 10.000 (!) plant and tree species originating from the tropics and the subtropics are growing in the greenhouses over there.

Thanks to the warm and moist climate in the conservatories and the intensive maintenance, it’s really amazing what an immense great variety of exotic flowers from all over the world can be seen there, even in the cold winter season !
Flowers whose natural habitat is situated in the rainforest, the mountain forest, isolated islands, deserts, etc……. Places that most of us will never or seldom visit.
Some of the flowers are very rare, extremely colourful or specially shaped.
Others were introduced in Europe by men and became a cultivated species or an ornamental houseplant.

I selected the –to my personal taste- most beautiful flowers that I saw there and made a series of them.

******************************************************************************************

There exists no Dutch or German name for this species.
Latin name : Costus pictus

Country of origin : Central and South-America

***

In India this plant is used to control diabetes.
Diabetic people eat one leaf daily to keep their blood glucose low, similar to insulin (hence its official English name). It’s a cheap method that seems to be efficient too