Rio's Botanical Garden--orchids, lipstick and more

My hair whips across my face as the open-air Jeep I'm riding in courses through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. This is the second day my friend Diane and I are in Rio, and our tour group is on the way to Rio's Botanical Garden.

The open-air Jeep ride is fun. We wear seat belts and sit on benches in the back of the vehicle. My head swivels back and forth trying to take in all the sites we pass. The buildings in this part of the city are fairly ordinary, but the many trees along the parkways make the area inviting.

A second Jeep in our entourage follows close behind us, and I snap a photo.

Our tour group gets a street view of Rio as we ride through the city in two open-air Jeeps on our way to Rio's Botanical Garden.


The Botanical Garden was founded in 1808 by the future King Dom Joao VI of Portugal who escaped Napoleon Bonaparte's clutches by fleeing to Brazil. The Garden is large--350 acres--and has more than 6,000 species of tropical plants in its collection.

Our tour guide for this excursion is Christina. She expertly leads us through the Garden, showing us interesting plants and telling us facts and stories about what we see. Near the entrance, we encounter a beguiling statue titled The Dancers.

Nudes frolicing in a circle in The Dancers sculpture suggest innocence, playfulness and joy within nature.


Since I come from a temperate climate, all these tropical plants are new to me. There's so much to see and learn--what should I photograph?

The brilliant red bracts of the red ginger plant stand out in the landscape.


Christina stops at the base of a sumauma or kapok tree, a huge tree with a prominently buttressed trunk. The tree grows to 200 feet or more and is the tallest tree in the rain forest. The silk cotton of its seeds is used as a stuffing for life jackets and pillows. The tree is also known as the forest telephone. When the tree's buttresses are beaten, the sound echoes through the forest. I knock against the buttresses and yes, they do produce a loud sound.

Diane stands inside the buttresses of a sumauma (kapok) tree.

We come to a jackfruit tree. Jackfruit, which are said to "taste like heaven, smell like hell" grow on the trunk of the tree. Jackfruit are the largest tree-borne fruit in the world. They can grow to be 35 inches long and 20 inches in diameter.

A small jackfruit growing on the trunk of the tree.

Flowers along the way tend to be brilliantly colored and take on diverse forms.

An arc of yellow stamens, the male part of the flower, wrap the flower head with a halo.


Above us chattering monkeys scamper on utility wires and in trees. Christina tells us they are macaco-prego monkeys.

A macaco-prego monkey momentarily quiet.


We come across a quiet pond area.

A pond shimmers with the reflections of tropical plants.


Christina leads us to the Garden's Orchid House. We're in luck because an orchid show is in progress. Inside natural light and white walls make a perfect backdrop for the colorful orchid plants. Some have blue ribbons on them. All are artfully displayed. The place is crowded, and it's hard to find an open space to take a photo. I would like to dawdle at the displays to appreciate the beauty of these gorgeous flowers, but we only have 30 minutes to look at the exhibit. Unfortunately, if I don't want to hold up the others, I have to race through the exhibit.

I anthropomorphize that these hot pink orchids with their smiling faces are flirting with onlookers.


Being among all this beauty, I understand why flowers have come to mark special occasions in life.

The inflorescence of these yellow orchids resembles the white orchids in corsages I wore when I went to high school and college dances.


As an amateur naturalist and plant lover, I'm always stirred by the diverse forms plants take while remaining true to a pattern.

These purple orchids with a squarish venation in their petals are my favorite orchids in the show.


As we near the exit of the Garden, Christina stops in front of a shrubby tree and selects some seeds from a pod that has fallen to the ground. Explaining that this annatto tree is also called a lipstick tree because its seeds have been used as a cosmetic, she swipes a seed against the palm of her hand and makes an orange-red stripe on it. To demonstrate, I pick a seed from her open hand and smear it across my lips.

My smile shows off orange-red lips highlighted with a seed from a lipstick tree.


It's been a wondrous morning filled with learning, the aim of all my travel, and beauty. I'm smiling with orange-red lips as we exit Rio's Botanical Garden and climb aboard the Jeep.




The first article in this South American travel series, Scenes from Rio--beaches, mountains and more, was published October 5, 2007.


NEXT in this travel series: Corcovado Mountain