Built for Birds
Many red, orange, and tube-shaped flowers are made for birds, not bees: birds see red well, and a long beak fits a long tube. In Nepal the visitors are sunbirds; in the Americas, hummingbirds.
Bird of Paradise
Strelitzia reginae
The flower looks like a bird’s head, and a bird is its partner: when a sunbird lands on the blue petals to drink nectar, they open and dust its feet with pollen.
Bottlebrush
कल्की फूल
Callistemon sp.
Each “brush” is a spike of many small flowers, and the bristles are their long red stamens. Birds pushing in for nectar get dusted with pollen.
Fuchsia
कृष्णकली
Fuchsia sp.
Its dangling flowers are shaped for hummingbirds in its native Central and South America, which drink from them while hovering.
Cuphea
Cuphea sp.
Many cupheas have small tube-shaped flowers, just right for a bird’s beak. Some kinds are called firecracker or cigar plant for the shape of their blooms.
Crocosmia
रुद्रावती
Crocosmia sp.
Its orange flowers open one after another along arching stems, and in its native Africa sunbirds visit them. It grows from a corm, a swollen underground stem.
Turk’s Cap (Chili Hibiscus)
Malvaviscus arboreus
Its red flowers never fully open, staying twisted like a chili pepper. Only a long beak or tongue can reach the nectar inside.
Bush Lily
Clivia miniata
Clusters of orange trumpets that sunbirds visit in the South African forests where it grows wild. It flowers in shade, where few other plants do.
Hibiscus
जाभाकुसुम फूल
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
A hibiscus holds its pollen and stigma on a long column in the middle, so a sunbird drinking nectar brushes against both. Each flower lasts only a day.
Egyptian Star Cluster
Pentas lanceolata
Dozens of five-pointed star flowers in each cluster, each on a long, thin tube that butterflies and sunbirds reach into for nectar.
Seemannia
Seemannia sp.
Its small orange-red tube flowers, spotted inside, are shaped for hummingbirds in the Andes. In the cool season it rests underground as scaly rhizomes.
Cape Honeysuckle
Tecoma capensis
Orange-red trumpet flowers made for the sunbirds of South Africa, which push their curved beaks deep inside.
Shrubby Salvia
Salvia sp.
A shrubby salvia from the Americas. Its flowers have the salvia lever that taps pollen onto visitors, and in its native range hummingbirds visit as well as bees.
More in How Plants Live
The garden is alive and changes through the year. Some plants flower, fruit, or rest only in certain seasons, so what you see depends on when you visit.
See them for yourself
Every plant here grows on our campus in Bhaktapur. Walk the garden on your visit.
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