Explore Nov 8, 2010 #267 There it was... parachute like with long purple filaments dotted with tiny drops of water. And the flower is one foot across! And here I was, with my camera around my neck, groping around in the steamy hot Rare Plant House searching for a metal tag to identify this amazing flower extravaganza! And, it was Dog Day so I had my pup Honey watching me, tipping her head to the right and the left curious. The flowers are black to purplish white, nodding on long pedicels, 2 bracts broadly ovate and winglike, 2 smaller bracts perpendicular to the others, black, greenish or reddish. Bracteoles threadlike, 6 - 8 inches long. Leaves basal, lanceolate, glossy dark green blade tapering down the petiole. The genus Tacca, which includes the Bat flowers and Arrowroot, consists of ten species of flowering plants in the order Dioscoreales, native to tropical regions of Africa, Australia, and south-eastern Asia. In older texts, the genus was treated in its own family Taccaceae, but the 2003 APG II system incorporates it into the family Dioscoreaceae. Taccaceae is native to Malaysia. Tacca integrifolia, Bat Fower, Dracula Flower, Flor de Murcielago Windows to the Tropics, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami, FL www.susanfordcollins.com
