Bromeliads and ferns in the Volunteer Park Conservatory—Part Two of Conservatory Week

After my speaking duties at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival in Seattle wrapped up, I took off to visit the Volunteer Park Conservatory on Capitol Hill. Like the Gaiser Conservatory I wrote about on Monday, I once lived just a few blocks away, and spent a lot of time here.

Unlike the Gaiser Conservatory (which is free to visit), it now costs $4 to visit the Volunteer Park Conservatory. Not a lot, but money was tight in my 20's and that would have kept me from visiting as often as I did. Back then admission was free and I was there at least once a month.

I started my visit in the fern and bromeliad houses, admiring this ginormous staghorn fern as I entered.

But also stopping to appreciate this smaller plant seemingly attached right to the window glass.

A pyrrosia! Labeled as Pyrrosia linqua.

Don't you love a cramscaped conservatory?

The sign on the cycad gives info about sago palms.

One of my very favorite things, when a plant grows on another plant, here a fern on the sago trunk.

Bromeliad in space!

So many different plant textures in one photo.

I didn't see a label for the nepenthes, but the plant was quite large.

More carnivorous plants...

Darlingtonia californica

Sarracenia, and I love the Ficus pumila covered walls.

Most of the tables all had a mulch of low growing cryptanthus and the like...

Of course tillandsia are growing everywhere.

You're probably detecting a theme here as far as names are concerned. I didn't see many tags and I don't trust my bromeliad (or fern) ID skills.

Seriously IN LOVE with the cryptanthus.

A tag! The dark leaves belong to Billbergia 'Muriel Waterman', who's Muriel? (*update: thanks to Gerhard I now know and love Muriel! Read this)

The plant in the corner with the orange "blooms" is Medinilla scortechinii.

"This versatile little shrub has a low spreading growth, reaching a height of 1' to 2'. It can be grown as either a semi-terrestrial or a epiphytic shrub. It features dark green, leathery leaves and when it flowers it displays bright orange stalks and panicles which are reminiscent of tropical coral branches. Can be grown as a small shrub or a potted plant." (source)

Wowsa! Love their Deuterocohnia lorentziana...

Orthophytum 'Copper Penny'

Here I'm shooting through the windows of the conservatory spying on what's being grown in the glasshouses not accessible to the public. I see jungle cactus...

A lot of jungle cactus!

One final plant to droll over today, Ceratostema rauhii...

It's an epiphyte from the cloud forests of Peru, and it's in the blueberry family! (source) I sat on that bench for a bit, with the staghorn tickling my hair, contemplating all that I'd seen—before continuing on to the desert side of things. Yes both ends of the plant spectrum, from ferns and bromeliads to the desert... all my favorites are housed here under one roof! To the desert we'll go on Friday...

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