Unusual Flowering Plants

• There are 400,000 species of known flowering plants on the planet, according to a new scientific count, and the most popular ones are familiar to most people. But nature tends to produce some strange things, and plants are no exception. Their unusual characteristics can range from their appearance to how they get their nutrients.

Black Bat Flower

• Black bat flower, Tacca chantrieri, gets its common name from its dark, purple to black blooms that have the shape of a bat in flight. If that isn't strange enough, it has whiskery growths as long as 28 inches that protrude from the center of the plant. Some species of Tacca are white or pink.

  The black bat flower is a perennial that is native to tropical and sub-tropical Southeast Asia, found in Malaysia, Thailand and southern China. It is endangered in the wild, according to Marsh Botanic Gardens at Yale University, but can be grown in a greenhouse.

Sickle Bush

• The sickle bush, Dichrostachys cinera, is a flowering shrub also known as princess earrings or Kalahari Christmas tree. It is a small tree found in parts of Africa, India, Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Its unusual flowers make it easy to identify. They are stringy puffs that hang down like an earring from the end of the branches to form a two-colored bloom. The top half of the flower is bright pink, with a smaller, fuzzy yellow cluster at the lower tip. The sickle bush can grow 25 to 30 feet tall. Researchers have studied the medicinal properties of some subspecies of this plant, according to the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, including its use as snake anti-venin and for treating urinary and renal problems.

Cobra Lily

• The cobra lily, Darlingtonia californica, is also called the California pitcher plant. It is a carnivorous plant that grows in wet areas in parts of California and Oregon. This plant gets it name from the shape of its foliage, as it rises from the ground in a great curl that resembles a cobra with its hood open.

  The cobra lily lures insects into its open stalk with a sweet-smelling aroma. Once they crawl inside the opening of the plant they are unable to escape because of the downward-facing hairs and slippery surface inside. Flies and other insects continue to move down into the plant, trying to get out, but instead are turned into plant food. Cobra lilies, which can grow up to 4 feet tall, prefer indirect light and are best grown in moss.

  The cobra lily also produces flowers occasionally between April and August, but the flowers grow from a large stalk that extends upward separately from the pitcher.