Last week I was visited the Garfield Park Conservatory on the West Side of Chicago, one of the great conservatories (just ask anyone). Been some years since I’ve been there, but I remember taking younger versions of Lilly and Ann at least once, and pointing out the cocoa trees. “See? That’s the plant chocolate comes from.”

The cocoa trees are still there, of course. So are the banana trees.

Plus a welter of plants I’ve never heard of. Or forgotten. No matter how many conservatories or gardens I visit – and I try to take in a few every year – I always run across something new.  I don’t have it in me to be a botanist, just someone who says, wow, that’s interesting.

Take a look at the Hanging Lobster Claw, Heloconia rostrata cultivar, Heliconiaceae, native to South America (someone added the little glass eyeballs on the top petal). It’s like something Dale Chihuly might hang at the conservatory. He had a show at the Garfield Park Conservatory a few years ago for which he did hang his glass art in the conservatory, but I missed it.

Or the Shrimp Plant, Pachystachys lutae, Acanthaceae, which grows in Peru.

I liked this plant, but it also shows that my note-taking isn’t always very thorough.