Mar 6, 2025, 12:57 PM IST
From giant water lily to baseball plant here are eight exotic plant species in the world.
This ball-shaped succulent plant is also called sea urchin plant (given the shape of its body). It used to be only found in the Great Karoo region of South Africa. Unfortunately, it has become associated with unsustainable harvesting practices as more people around the globe have decided to grow baseball plants around them.
Like the baseball plant, the corpse flower is also listed as an endangered plant and there are an estimated 1,000 plants growing in the wild-a decline of more than 50% over the past 150 years.
Keep your noses plugged, because we’ve got another stinky plant to talk about. This herbaceous perennial is native to rocky slopes in the Mediterranean and, like some of the flowers in this list, it also produces a highly unpleasant fragrance from its maroon blooms.
Don’t fall for its beautiful flowers, because this is yet another plant that’s known for its foul smell—so much so that it’s known locally as carrion flower. It smells like rotting meat, and also has a coloration and hairs to actually look like a decaying animal! This works wonders for attracting pollinators, even from a great distance.
While it’s also known as Amazon Water Lily, Royal Water Lily, and Amazon Water Platter, Giant Water Lily does this plant justice given its huge floating lily pads. As the largest member of the water lily family, it has pads that span up to eight feet across.
Here’s yet another plant that’s earned the nickname, corpse flower. However, unlike most of these other plants, elephant foot yam is also a valuable and highly-nutritious food crop in many areas around the world. Its flower can be eaten, too! As the name suggests, the plant is rather large and looks like an elephant’s foot.
It’s name truly says it all, this plant looks like a sheep. It’s a cushion plant that has woolly appearing leaves. This plant survives in the harsh, rocky areas of New Zealand because it has an interior that serves like a sponge to keep the plant thriving, even with very little rainfall.
There is one main reason this plant is very interesting: it can live up to 135,000 years. Although most of them live an average of 300 years, the plant can clone itself for a minimum of 43,600 years. This means that all the plants are genetically identical and they are one of the oldest living plant clones.