Des Moines Botanical Center: Christmas Cactus

 I never finished putting up my photos from the botanical center back in March. Whoops. Anyway, this is a Christmas cactus. I thought this one was really cool because it was started from a cutting here in Iowa in 1810. This cactus is over 200 years old!

It had a few blooms on it. They're really pretty. I have a Christmas cactus myself, that my grandma started for me from a cutting from her plant. It's been growing really well over the past year and hopefully in another year or so it will bloom!

Orchids: Des Moines Botanical Center

Here are a bunch of pretty pictures of orchids at the botanical center. I've had a crappy Sunday so pretty pictures are here to make me feel better.

Fishtail Palm: Des Moines Botanical Center

I think this palm tree is really cool looking. It's called a fishtail palm, and I think it's pretty obvious why. It's really tall. I had to look straight up to take this picture. I like it because it's different from the standard palm tree.

Des Moines Botanical Center: Koi

 There are lots of koi in the stream that goes through the botanical center. They're really pretty fish, even though they're related to carp, which are kind of ugly looking. Some of them are really big.

 Most of the koi in the pond were orange, but they did have some of the white varieties. They are my favorite.

While I was looking at the koi, I noticed this painted turtle! Painted turtles are from Michigan, so I had to take a picture of my Michigander turtle friend.

Des Moines Botanical Center: Palm

This is some kind of palm. I took a picture of it because of the leaves. You can see that some parts of the leaves are attached to each other near the stem, but as the leaves grow outward they are separated. This actually is because of apoptosis-programmed cell death. As the leaves grow, the cells that attach the leaves to each other undergo apoptosis and die, letting the leaves separate. How cool is that?

Bananas: Des Moines Botanical Center

 This is a baby banana tree. Look at how little and cute it is! I'd never seen a baby banana tree before.

And this is an adult banana tree making bananas. They grow up so fast...

Funky Cactus of the Day

This is a close up of this weird cactus at the Des Moines Botanical Center. It has a thick stem, these adorable little tiny leaves, and gigantic thorns! It looks pretty crazy but I bet it protects itself well from predators. I kind of want one because they look really neat but I would always be afraid that I would hurt myself on it.

Turtles at Des Moines Botanical Center

Yay turtles! There are a lot of turtles and koi in the stream that runs through the center. All of these turtles were lined up on the bank. Eventually they got bored and jumped back in the water, but it was cute while it lasted!

Tulips: Des Moines Botanical Center

These are some of the tulips growing inside at the Botanical Center. The outside tulips hadn't bloomed yet when I was there, although by now they might be. I really liked both the purple and the yellow and orange ones. Fun fact: the stripes in tulips are caused by a plant virus. People have been manipulating the infected tulips to create new varieties for years.

Allspice Flower: Des Moines Botanical Center

Woo, I'm done with my Omaha zoo photos, so now we're moving to the pictures I took at the Des Moines Botanical Center. It's in downtown Des Moines and it's a pretty cool place! I love taking pictures of flowers so I had a lot of fun there. So be prepared for a crap load of flower pictures. Anyway, this is an allspice flower. I didn't know where allspice came from but apparently it's a tree and it makes these nice flowers.