The  Exotic Rainforest     
collection includes hundreds of Anthurium, Philodendron, Alocasia,
Colocasia, Amorphophallus, bromeliad, orchid and rare plant species
from the world's tropical rain forests

This site is intended to be an informational source. 

Visitors are welcome in the garden.
Please call to make an appointment.
Contact information is near the bottom (left) of this page.
For a brief tour of our private botanical garden go here: Rainforest Tour   



Looking for information on a specific exotic plant species? 

Need help finding what you're seeking?  Try these suggestions:  
This site contains hundreds of pages.
Start by clicking the links in the gold box above.  There are numerous
articles answering commonly asked plant questions in the column to
the lower right.  Try clicking on many of the photos since you'll often
find additional information.  If you are seeking information on a specific plant by
common name or the scientific name start here: Plants in the Collection.
 

What is a stem?  What is a petiole?
Is a stem the stalk that supports a leaf?

Just add Ice cubes to a tropical orchid?
Is that really a smart idea?

Want to meet new friends that enjoy tropical plants?
Join the International Aroid Society
Many of the most popular collectable plant species in the rain forest are aroids!


"We're here to help you find answers!"






What is an Aroid? 
Aroids are among the most frequently grown house plants in the world!

Aroid is the common name for approximately 3680 species divided into 119 genera
all of which are members of the family Araceae.  However, that number is a moving target being updated monthly
and modern botanists estimate the total number of species is closer to 6000.
Aroids include all Philodendron, Anthurium, Alocasia, Spathiphyllum (Peace Lilies), Colocasia,
Calla Lily, Amorphophallus, Caladium and many other exquisitely spectacular genera.
The beautiful and often bizarre combination of ornate foliage with the
production of an inflorescence known as as a spathe and spadix distinguishes an aroid species. 

The goal of the IAS is to support the preservation and study of the species we
grow but make the information available to any plant enthusiast. 

For more information please click this link
Join the IAS



Sorry Firefox and Google Chrome users!  
You may have to scroll WAY down the right column below! 
Firefox and Google Chrome apparently cannot read some of our coding! 

 >>>>>> PROLOGUE <<<<<<
 

 A  tropical Rain Forest
in Arkansas?

In 1974 we made our first trip to an Exotic Rainforest.  That one was in Puerto Rico and from that moment I fell in love with the rare exotic plants that live in the rain forests of the world. 

In 1979 Janice and I took our three children and moved to the island of Jamaica where we lived and worked for almost two years.   To this day we miss all the time we spent roaming around the island as well as its people, food, incredible beaches and rain forests. 

Following that I fell into a fortunate string of events while working as a photographer/writer for Skin Diver Magazine.  SDM allowed me to visit the Indian Ocean, tropical Pacific, parts of Southeast Asia, the Red Sea and opened doors that eventually allowed me to create brochures and ads for hotels and island governments. 

For many years I was able to travel hundreds of times to islands such as St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the U.S. Virgins Islands, and the Bahamas.  I was fortunate to do work for, the Cancun Hotel Association, the Cayman Islands Tourist Association, hotels and properties in South America, Central America as well as other Caribbean governments and hotels. 

 Needless to say, we have tropical "blood" flowing in our veins.

The jungles and rain forests of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, S.E. Asia and the tropical Pacific are alive with a varied selection of unusual and often rare plants.  Regrettably, far too many are being destroyed and my grandchildren may never see one.  By doing nothing more than logging on to Google Earth you can see vast areas of Brazil that have been almost totally stripped of forest! 

Fortunately my work as a writer as well as a commercial and underwater photographer took me on journeys to many of these exotic destinations so, at least in my memory, they will live forever.  In the years that followed our first rain forest visit I was privileged to make many flights to countries around the world that have living, thriving rain forests.  Part of the goal of this site is to introduce you to their natural beauty as well as encourage you to visit, preserve and protect them for your children to see as well.

Although I retired in 2001 I've photographed some of the jungles of tropical nations such as Venezuela, Mexico, Belize, Columbia, Honduras, Ecuador, and Malaysia.  On my first visit to Singapore in 1986 I was escorted by a representative of the government on a visit to the national orchid collection which houses the world's largest collection of orchid species.  Instantly my interest in these beautiful flowering plants with "tribe" names such as Oncidium, Dendrobium and Cattleya was ignited.  Now we have hundreds of orchids from Asia as well as South and Central America and the Caribbean living in our own Exotic Rainforest.   

Living in Miami, Florida from 1980 to 2001 I had the perfect location to house my collection of plant species.  Everything lived in my yard, and my entire ½ acre was landscaped with three tropical ponds with flowering water lilies and hundreds upon hundreds of exotic aroids and other rare plants.  So just before 2000 when my wife Janice began to want to move closer to our grandchildren, adult children and her parents after 25 years in Florida I was determined to move the entire collection and make rare tropical plants accessible to folks who have never seen a rain forest.   We now own the only living rain forest in Arkansas and likely in most of the central United States.  We've hosted as many as 60 visitors on a single weekend and people are often amazed such exotic plant species live in our artificial rain forest behind our 119 year old home exactly the way they do in nature. 

I began to draw plans for the Exotic Rainforest years before we moved and told my friend Tom White who owns Zone Ten Nursery south of Miami I was going to build a "rain forest" in Arkansas in 1999.  He thought I had lost my mind. 

I did have reservations about leaving Florida but my only restriction on the move was I would take all my plants!   So now in the tiny rural community of Siloam Springs in Northwest Arkansas right on the border with Oklahoma and not far south of Missouri we own a flourishing rain forest! 

The Exotic Rainforest is not your typical "tropical plant collection and is not a  nursery".  We don't sell plants.  The Exotic Rainforest is more like a small botanical garden open to the public .  One guest called it "Costa Rica under glass".

Unlike most plant collections which live in pots our collection resides in an atrium designed to be as close as possible a true rain forest.  Just like it rains in any rain forest our plants are watered almost daily via an automatic system.  The entire building is designed to duplicate nature as closely as possible and hopefully it gives everyone that enters the feeling of visiting the tropics. 

Many of our specimens are planted in the ground which was specially prepared to be "tropical"   Our rarest specimens are in large pots with soil prepared to suit each individual specimen.  Learn how we built the Exotic Rainforest here. 

We love to share our plants and gladly answer questions.  We  welcome anyone who wishes to visit.   We also make the Exotic Rainforest available to educators as a teaching tool and both public, private and home schoolers are welcome to visit the garden as a field trip but due to size we must limit group size to approximately 20 people at one time.  Please call before you visit.

As of mid 2009 there are many plant species as well as over 300 species of Araceae (uh-RAY-see ee) known as aroids in the collection.  Our aroid collection includes a full 10% of all the nearly 2000 Anthurium and Philodendron species known to science.   A number of those were acquired through associations with accredited botanical gardens and we have the exact locations including GPS coordinates where they originated in the rain forests of the world.  Having acquired many rare plants we also share specimens not in the collections of some public gardens with those institutions.  The collection even includes specimens which have never been identified to science. 

         LINKS:  
Didn't find what you need?  Links to rare tropical collectors,  botanical   gardens, ecotours, and plant sources.

MAPS AND DIRECTIONS to the Exotic Rainforest     
 

* The  background sounds of the Exotic Rainforest Private Botanical Garden are professionally recorded and used with the permission of Andrew Skeoch & Sarah Koschak's Listening Earth.  You can listen to samples and CD's of many different rainforest sounds on their website:     http://www.listeningearth.com.au/