The Everything Grows tropical plant expedition was pretty overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and diversity of plants in the African rain forest at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro!
Below are photos of two flowers that are found only in this particular forest, and below that are two photos of giant ferns that were at least 30-40 feet tall. It was hard to photograph many of the plants because everything was so overgrown and dense that you could not isolate a particular plant.
The flower above is the Impatiens kilimanjarii is also known as the elephant’s trunk flower because of its shape. It is a tiny flower unique to the area, but it was easy to spot because if is one of the few things in the rain forest that is not a shade of green.
The Mountain gladiolus above is also unique to Kilimanjaro
We finally came across a giant fern (above) that was easy to photograph. This is a small specimen though — see the larger ones below.
All of the not-so-straight trunks are giant ferns — easily 30-40 feet tall but still growing below the forest canopy.