By Jeff Cummins, Horticulturalist at the Cockrell Butterfly Center A sea of green surrounds people living in even the most urban environments, and yet almost nobody can see truly the plants. We see the trees, manicured hedges, or notice when our neighbor has taken a little too long to mow the lawn, but that’s […]
Meet Lois’s baby cousin, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius. It may not be as large or as smelly as the corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) that bloomed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2010, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome! It’s blooming in the Cockrell Butterfly Center right now, and by the end of the weekend, it should be […]
What is an “ant plant”? Because we are striving to portray a “real” tropical rainforest, we have several and plants at the Cockrell Butterfly Center, but what makes them so special? Technically called myrmecophytes (from the Greek myrmeco – “ant”, and phyte – “plant”), these plants have a very special relationship with ants, one that […]
