How to Identify Tropical Plants
Tropical plants natural habitat is the warm tropical environment. There is regular rainfall, plenty of humidity and high temperatures. There are more than 80,000 species of tropical plants in the world. They are unique and exotic with a wide variety of shapes and radiant colors.
Items Needed:
- A tropical plant field guide (helpful)
- A notebook to record your findings (optional)
Identify Tropical Plants: Identifying tropical plants is simple since they have outstanding characteristics of their own. A wonderful way to identify characteristics is to visit the nature environment, an arboretum, or indoor garden centers.
- Look out for color and radiance of the tropical plants. Tropical plants are beautiful since they come in several different and radiant colors. Nearly all of the tropical plants have bright colors because they originate from tropical forests where they rely on animals and insects for pollination.
- Smell the tree’s tropical fragrance that is either strong or very attractive. Their fragrance is an adaptation technique that helps them to attract animals and insects for pollination when they are in their natural habitat.
- Look for the tropical flower with radiant green leaves since they always appear greener than other plants. They are usually dark green to enable them to pack lots of chlorophyll. This also protects them from the high temperatures in the tropical areas.
- Identify the large leaves on most of the tropical plants. They normally have big leaves that spread out gracefully to tap into the light and humidity. Some have leaves shaped like a banana, big heart shapes and palms among many others. They have big veins on the leaves to facilitate enough supply of water in the plants.
- Most of the tropical plants are sources of very delicious fruits. The fruits are large and juicy with radiant colors such as yellow, orange red and lime green.
- Look for large flowers with radiant colors such as cup sized petals and multi colored giant flowers that have a nice fragrance. Tropical plants have large flowers that have bright colors and interesting shapes. The flowers from tropical plants have a lot of nectar since the plants grow in an environment with plenty of water.
- Feel the leaves of the plant while looking for a tropical plant. Most tropical plants have a shiny and smooth surface on the leaves. This is an adaptation to ensure that they do not lose a lot of moisture in the hot and humid environments. Their stems and leaves are fleshy and filled with water to keep them well hydrated.
- Identify if the roots do not burrow deep into the soil since tropical plants grow in an environment where there is plenty of rainfall. They grow in porous soils that are well aerated hence they have shallow and adventurous roots.
- Use your tropical plant field guide to use the characteristics to narrow down the type and strain of the tropical plant.