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!

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    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.

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

          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/