If you do not not wish to hear the sounds please turn volume down or press stop to end. *         
Website updated:  07/06/2008   
 NOTE: **  Website best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution using MSIE 6.0 as a browser. 
Firefox users!  Firefox scrambles pages! We cannot fix the problem caused by Firefox! Best viewed with Internet Explorer. 

Link to the Natural Selections plant website
www.nsexotics.com

DSL & Hi-Speed Internet Users Enter Here (more photos)

      The Exotic Rainforest is a private botanical garden and plant collection.
There are many photographs on this site.  Please forgive any delay in download time. 

What is in the  Exotic Rainforest?

....and a whole lot more!
 

Need help finding what you are seeking?  Here are some suggestions: This site contains well over 300 pages! There are numerous articles regarding commonly asked plant questions. Scroll down this page and you can find the majority listed. Be sure and watch for links inside those articles. We often reference other information you may find useful. If you are seeking information on a specific plant, either by common name or the scientific name, click on Plants in the Collection in the gold box at the top of this homepage. A list will pop up. You may need to read carefully to find the common name but we try to inclue all known common names. We always list the scientific name first so take a few moments to look down the list for common names.

For an overview of our private botanical garden, click on the Tour the Rain Forest. Most people are very surprised to find a flourishing tropical rain forest in NW Arkansas! We have hosted as many as 60 people on weekends! And there is never a charge! If a search engine brought you here, the chances are high the information you seek is here. You may simply need to look around a bit!

 

We collect:
Anthurium   Philodendron   Orchids   Aroids   Rare Plants
Alocasia  Oncidium  Cattleya  Dendrobium  and Lady Slipper 'Paph' Orchids

This site is intended to be an informational source.  Visitors are Welcome in the Garden.
To our friends in SE Asia: the Exotic Rainforest does not sell Anthurium or seeds.

Looking for information on a specific exotic plant species?  Click here!

Take the Rainforest Tour now?

All Images on this website are Copyright Protected.  If you wish to reuse an image, ask first!
 

Firefox users:  For some reason Firefox scrambles some pages.  The problem is with Firefox and we suggest you log on using Internet Explorer.  We use no popups or tracking cookies.  This is not a commercial site.

 >>>>>> PROLOGUE <<<<<<


       Our newest Display.  An Epiphyte Tree!  

More plants grow up in the trees than in the ground!
Click the photo below to learn more
 
Epiphyte tree, Photo Copyright 2008, Steve Lucas inside the ExoticRainforest tropical atrium, NW Arkanasas
 

A kind word from Robert Vincent Sims, The Garden Rebel:
"As a national garden radio show host I have to research thousands of sites. By far the Exotic Rainforest has the most interesting information and the best photography I have ever seen. I have all ready told all of my friends about the Exotic Rainforest and will continue to let all of my listeners know about this site. Steve's dedication for accuracy is impressive, he is a master researcher and I consider it the best private site I have ever seen."

You can listen to the Garden Rebel on the world wide web at www.wdbo.com live on Sunday mornings. You can also here Vince's nationally syndicated show on any of the Radio America Network stations every Sunday morning from 10:00 - 12:00 Eastern time. Be sure to call in, he loves making new friends!
 

Learn even More!  Join the International Aroid Society!  Click for details!

Plant Articles on this site:

Natural variation within Aroid and other plant species.
Every leaf does not have to look alike!
A scientific concept plant collectors often refuse to accept!


Growing Anthurium Species
 How to Understand, Cultivate, Grow, Pot, and Water an
Anthurium


Growing Philodendron Species
 The "How to" of Potting, Growing, Care and Culture of  Philodendron species

Pollination in Aroids
As it occurs in nature and at the hand of any horticulturist
By Julius Boos

An additional link has now been added to the page showing the entire process of the reproduction of a Philodendron.
 
Click to Learn about the Rare Thailand Parrot Flower
Are you one of the people who believe the Parrot Flower is not an Impatiens?  Take a look at the  International Plant Names Index (Royal Botanic Garden Kew in London)!  A search of their records in April, 2008 reveals there are more than 1.300 Impatiens species!  http://mrimpatiens.com/1389_records_found%20of%20impatiens%20sp.htm 
Impatiens psittacina is on their list!

More Plant Articles Listed Below
 

    A Rain Forest in Arkansas?
In 1974 we made our first trip to an Exotic Rainforest.  That one was in Puerto Rico and I was hooked!  From that moment I fell in love with the rare exotic plants that live in any rain forest.  Those jungles are called rain forests because the plants that flourish in their boundaries love rain.  And rain it does much of the year.

The jungles and rain forests of the Caribbean, South America, Central America, S.E. Asia and the tropical Pacific are alive with a varied selection of unusual and often rare plants.  Regrettably, too many of the world's rain forests are being destroyed and my grandchildren may never see one.  Fortunately, my work as a commercial and underwater photographer took me on journeys to many of these exotic destinations.  In the years that followed our first visit I was privileged to make hundreds of flights to countries around the world that still have living, thriving rain forests. 

I've seen most of the islands of the Caribbean including those with rainforests like St. Lucia,  St. Vincent, and Jamaica.  I've photographed the jungles of tropical nations such as Venezuela, Mexico, Belize, Columbia, Honduras, Ecuador, Singapore and others.  On my first visit to Singapore in 1986 I was escorted on a visit to the national orchid collection.  Instantly my interest in these wildly beautiful flowering plants with "tribe" names such as Oncidium, Dendrobium and Cattleya was ignited. Now we have hundreds of orchids living in our "rain forest", many attached just like they grow in nature.  Just take at our epiphytic tree!  You can find a photo with a link just above this article.

Living in Miami, Florida at the time I had the perfect location to house my collection of plant species.  Everything lived in my yard, and my entire ½ acre was landscaped with three tropical ponds with flowering water lilies and hundreds upon hundreds of exotic aroids and other rare plants. 

So just before 2000 when my wife, Janice, began to want to move closer to our grown children and her parents after 25 years in Florida, I was determined to move the collection and make rare tropical plants accessible to folks who have never seen a rain forest.   We now own the only living rain forest in Arkansas, and likely in most of the central United States.  We've hosted as many as 60 visitors on a single weekend and people are often amazed such plant species exist in our artificial rain forest exactly the way they do in nature.

I told my friend Tom White, who owns Zone Ten Nursery south of Miami, I was going to build a "rain forest" in Arkansas in 1999 and he thought I had lost my mind.  I did have reservations about leaving Florida, but my only restriction on the move was I would take my plants!   So now, in the tiny rural community of Siloam Springs in Northwest Arkansas, right on the border with Oklahoma and not far south of Missouri we own a flourishing rain forest!  But unlike most plant collections, which reside in pots, our collection resides in an atrium designed to truly be, as close as possible, a true rain forest.  Our plants are watered daily, twice each day, from an automatic system!  The entire building is designed to duplicate nature as closely as possible and hopefully it gives anyone who enters the feeling of visiting the tropics. 

 The vast majority of our specimens are planted in the ground which was specially  prepared to be "tropical" before planting.  You can read how we created it by clicking here.  We have not only exotic plants, but also tropical birds, tropical tree frogs, tropical anoles (small green lizards) and other rain forest inhabitants.   And in the background you can hear recordings of the birds and sounds of rain forests  from all over the world.  It's not your typical "tropical plant collection and it is not a  nursery"!  We don't sell plants, we study our plants and it is more like a small botanical garden open to the public.

RECENTLY ADDED ORCHIDS
Click link to go directly to orchid.


RECENTLY ADDED PLANTS
Click link to go directly to plant.

 

 

Colmanara Wildcat 'Okika'

 

Paphiopedilum Hybrid

Arnold Linsman 'Hot & Spicey'

Encyclia cochleata

Venustum 'Blatant' x Virginia Moffet 'Whey'
Paphiopedilum Hybrid

Miltoniopsis Hybrid
The Butterfly Orchid

Colmanara Wildcat 'Okika'

Encyclia Hybrid Unknown

Burrageara Kilauea 'Pacific Harvest'

 

 

Huperzia nummulariifolia (Blume) Chambers, Jermy & Crabbe
Basionym:
Lycopodium nummularifolium

Synonym:

Phlegmariurus nummularifolius
Non-scientific names found on the internet:
Huperzia nummularifolius 
Lycopodium nummularifolia 

Common names: Tassel Fern,
Club Moss, Fir Moss

Huperzia phlegmaria (L.) Rothm.
 
Lycopodium fern,
Coarse tassel fern, Tassel fern
Synonyms: Lycopodium phlegmaria L, Lepidotis phlegmaria (L.) P. Beauv.,
Phlegmariurus phlegmaria (L.) Holub, Phlegmariurus phlegmaria (L.) U. Sen & T. Sen,
Urostachys phlegmaria (L.) Herter ex Nessel 

Epiphyllum phyllanthus subspecies phyllanthus
(L.) Haw.

Philodendron williamsii
Hook. f.
One of the rarest and most often misnamed Philodendron species in the world!  The plant most people believe is Philodendron williamsii is truly Philodendron stenolobum!


Anthurium longipeltatum Matuda

Anthurium pseudospectabile Croat 
mistaken for
Anthurium spectabile

 Rhaphidophora tetrasperma   Hook.f.
Incorrectly Amydrium tetrasperma or Amydrium species 'Ginnie'

Alocasia zebrina
K. Koch & Veitch
Alocasia zebrina var. reticulata
An apparent sport
sold with the non-scientific name of Alocasia 'Reticulata'
This discussion includes Alocasia tigrina and Alocasia 'Tigrina Superba'

Philo esmeraldense Croat
Non-italicized since the species is not yet published

  Anthurium hookeri Kunth
Not the common Birds Nest Anthurium!

  Philodendron maximum  K. Krause

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One guest actually called it "Costa Rica Under Glass".  We also make the rain forest available to educators as a teaching tool.

The Exotic Rainforest is not a business, it's a collection.  We sell nothing.  We love to share our plants and gladly answer questions as well as welcome anyone who wishes to visit.  Please just call first!   Also, please understand the collection is not for sale.  Some of the rarest plants cannot be sold by agreement with the individuals who provided our specimen including some of the largest botanical gardens in North America.  We have many botanists as personal friends including the world's top aroid botanist, Dr. Tom Croat of the Missouri Botanical Garden.  his site was not created to sell plants. 

We don't attempt to make a living from the sale of specimens.  This site was created to give my adult daughters some insight as to "what is what" in the collection since I know I won't be here to care for them forever.  The site was designed to give them a "note book" to which they can refer along with my photos.  Hopefully you will find the information of value as well. 

I attempt to verify all my facts botanically, but I'm not a botanist.  I'm also certain I make errors.  If you find one please drop me a note and I'll research it further.  I sometimes get email telling me the name I use or some fact is in error.  That's possible, but virtually all have been verified from botanical sources and many pages are proofed by botanists.  I rarely use the internet for an ID since many plants are incorrectly identified on the net and I certainly don't use some of the "popular" plant books including Exotica and Tropica which are known by botanists to be filled with ID errors.  Mr. Graf, who was the writer of both was a collector, not a botanist.  He did a great thing by making all of us aware of the thousands of tropical species in the world, but regrettably his texts are filled with errors that his publishers make no effort to correct.  Mr. Graf has been deceased for many years, but his books continue in popularity.  I'll gladly give you botanical sources that will verify the fact a great deal of his information is inaccurate and many names simply do not exist in science.  They were simply "made up" by someone!  You will find I often point out "bad name" errors on the pages of this site. 

There are still approximately 100 plant species in the collection not photographed and described and we add new specimens to this site almost daily.  With the assistance of almost one half dozen botanical scientists, I attempt to verify my facts are correct before putting them on the internet.  And I have never made a claim anywhere to being an "expert" in any genera despite internet postings to the contrary.  I simply quote the real experts and refuse to quote the "pseudo-experts".  Still, if you believe there is an error, my email address is near the bottom of this page.

If you are visiting, or live near the Northwest Arkansas area, and you love exotic plants as much as we do you are welcome to visit.  On the following pages you'll find over 300 pages of information including tips on how to care for many of the Philodendron, Anthurium, orchids, aroids and others we collect.  If you plan to visit NW Arkansas call anytime to see what's in bloom.  There is no charge to visit the garden. 

And by the way Tom.  I built it!  The ExoticRainforest is a living feature in NW Arkansas!

Steve Lucas
Curator
The ExoticRainforest

Before you view the collection take the Rainforest Tour

 
 

A list of Articles found on this website:

Click here to Learn about the Rare Thailand Parrot Flower
Are you one of the people who believe the Parrot Flower is not an Impatiens?  Take a look at the  International Plant Names Index (Royal Botanic Garden, Kew in London)!  A search of their records in April, 2008 reveals there are more than 1.300 Impatiens species!  http://mrimpatiens.com/1389_records_found%20of%20impatiens%20sp.htm 
Impatiens psittacina is on their list! 

Confused about the name of a plant species?  Do you believe Philodendron scandens and Philodendron micans are different species?  Did someone tell you a botanist had changed the name of your favorite plant? 
Chances are they just don't understand the well established rules of botany.  This article will explain:

 

Need Help with a Tropical Plant?  We may be able to help!
 

 

Will Green Light Kill Your Plants?

Are Philodendron sp. Poisonous?  Can Some Tropical Plants Really Harm You?
Is What They Say About Calcium Oxalate Crystals True?

Philodendron hastatum IS NOT Philodendron domesticum!
Read why!

 

The Confusion over Two Rare Philodendron sp!  
Joep Moonen (pronounced yupe or jupe)'s very Rare
Philodendron moonenii & Philodendron 'joepii'

A Cobalt Blue Fern from Thailand that can grow on Stone!
Microsorum thailandicum

   WHAT MAKES A RARE PLANT RARE?  
Is the "rare" tropical plant species you are about to buy really rare?

Watch for our "Rare Plant Icons on selected plants

Can You Really Grow Anthurium regale in Water?
Some say you can!



Trying to figure out what species you are growing?

We Are Primarily Collectors!
This website is intended to be a source of information!

We DO NOT Ship outside the U.S.  We do sell some plants, however we are not a commercial nursery.
  We do cultivate specimens from our own collection and offer them for sale or trade.
However, we don't maintain a "plant list" and the majority of our specimens are not for sale.
  If you are interested in a particular plant please send us an email and we
will let you know if one is available or if we can help you locate a specimen.


The Exotic Rainforest is a private botanical garden and plant collection. 
 If you are interested in acquiring a plant listed on this site please read the notice
on the "Plants Offered" link in the gold box at the top of the page.  We sometimes
have a very few extras but will not ship outside the United States.  Send an email to
to the address at the bottom of this page.

 We will confirm if we have an extra.  Many are very rare and not all plants are easily
found on commercial sites.  We do not maintain any form of a price list.  However we will attempt
to help you locate a plant.  Please check the "Plants Offered" link first. 
Come visit!

All Photographs © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Steve Lucas, The Exotic Rainforest
Photographs are Registered in the Library of Congress in accordance with U.S. Copyright Laws
This link will tell you more about the photography of Steve Lucas

All photographs on this website are the copyrighted property of Steve Lucas and The Exotic Rainforest, unless otherwise noted.  We do not object to our research being quoted provided we are given appropriate credit including this website link.  In some cases we will make photos available without charge upon request.  Most photographs are shot in high resolution digital format and are suitable for magazine reproduction.

Steve & Janice Lucas             
214 E. Franklin St.               
Siloam Springs, AR 72761   
(479) 685-6738  


IMPORTANT NOTICE:
We DO NOT sell Anthurium or seed!!!!!  We do not ship outside the United States!  If you are about to send an email asking for a price on any plant, or seed, PLEASE, click this link first!!!  We do not ship outside the United States.  The ExoticRainforest is a private botanical garden. It is not a plant nursery.
Steve@ExoticRainforest.com                             
                                 

 MAPS AND DIRECTIONS     

 


         Links to other rare tropical plant nurserys and botanical gardens LINKS:   Didn't find what your need?  Links to rare tropical collectors, botanical gardens, ecotours, and plant sources.

 

 

 

* The  background sounds of the Exotic Rainforest Private Botanical Garden are professionally recorded and used with the permission of Andrew Skeoch & Sarah Koschak's Listening Earth.  You can listen to samples and order CD's of many different rainforest sounds on their website:     http://www.listeningearth.com.au/