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Exotic Beauty (65) : Eggplant

Exotic Beauty (65) : Eggplant

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Mark Billiau.


Premium (World), region Antwerp, Belgium

Exotic Beauty (65) : Eggplant

The past years I made several visits to the conservatories of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium where 10.000 (!) plant and tree species originating from the tropics and the subtropics are growing in the greenhouses over there.

Thanks to the warm and moist climate in the conservatories and the intensive maintenance, it’s really amazing what an immense great variety of exotic flowers from all over the world can be seen there, even in the cold winter season !
Flowers whose natural habitat is situated in the rainforest, the mountain forest, isolated islands, deserts, etc……. Places that most of us will never or seldom visit.
Some of the flowers are very rare, extremely colourful or specially shaped.
Others were introduced in Europe by men and became a cultivated species or an ornamental houseplant.

I selected the –to my personal taste- most beautiful flowers that I saw there and made a series of them.

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In English also known as Wild Aubergine
Dutch name : Eierplant (ook Wilde Aubergine genaamd)
German name : Eierpflanze (auch Eierbaum und Wilde Aubergine genannt)
Latin name : Solanum melongena

Country of origin : India

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Actually, the shot does not show the flowers of this plant, but its fruits.

As you can see there’s a great difference in view between the wild and the well known cultivated aubergine.
Wild aubergines have the size and color of a goose or hen’s egg (hence its official name) while the most cultivated varieties are elongated and have a dark purple skin.

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