Bahamian flora

One of the most interesting things about living in new places is learning all the things that are different than what you are used to. In the Bahamas, I’ve found that I’m learning a lot about plants and animals that I’ve never seen before. Like the heron that lives in our pool (at least when Laika’s not around to chase him away). And the avocado tree in our backyard. The seasons — as much as we have them — are interesting to me, too. All the plants don’t bloom at the same time, like I’m used to with a traditional 4-season climate. Here, I’ll notice one tree blooming, and another will be dying at the same time. For example, currently the dilly tree in our neighbors’ backyard is busy dropping ripe fruit over the fence into our yard, the mango trees in the neighborhood have half-ripe mangoes, the avocado tree is just starting to bloom, and there’s a tree in our front yard (I have yet to discover what it is) that just dropped all of its leaves in the past week. There’s always something new happening and last week I noticed this:

If you look really close, you can see several red and yellow flowers in there. Here’s a close up:

Pretty crazy, huh? After some internet research, I learned that this is a heliconia plant. I had spotted one or two of these flowers in this plant before, but never in the numbers that are currently out there. It’s pretty amazing to have something so exotic-looking in your backyard.