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Is this an Internet Fraud?
So you think the Rare Thailand Parrot Flower is a Hoax?
Despite what you may believe, this rare Impatiens exists!
Impatiens psittacina was introduced to science in 1901 and can be found in at least 3 scientific texts.Despite the claims on one internetadvertising site, the flower IS NOT an orchid!
Have you eveer received an email you just know is a fraud? In April of 2006 I received an email from a friend with photos attached of a flower that was supposed to look like a parrot. Those photos were entitled the "Rare Thailand Parrot Flower". Many people around the world have now received that email. In fact, it appears to be on at least the third or fourth trip around the globe. I received it because I collect rare plants and was immediately suspicious. There are some very odd plants in the world, but this "flower" just didn't "smell" right. One, Amorphophallus titanum has a giant 6 foot flower that stinks like dead meat and when that "flower" was discovered many thought it was a hoax. But botanical gardens all over the world now have that very rare plant on display. Very odd plants do exist, but this one just appeared strange. But if this one is a hoax it has made it into several scientific texts!
Within two weeks after that first email I had received the same photos from at least 10 people asking if I knew where to buy the plant. I told most I thought it was a fraud but I was trying to learn more. There were 5 photos in the group and Isimply could not believe this supposed "flower" actually looked like a parrot about to take flight. Many things can be done with a computer to fool the human eye. This had to be a computer generated photograph, but I'm curious. Since I'm a plant collector and maintain a website for plant collectors I began researching the "plant". I hit dead end after dead end. The only mentions I could find on garden websites were calling the supposed plant "Impatiens psitticana". Those mentions were also from people who had received the email and were on the search for information. Most wanted to one. That supposed scientific name did not appear on any of the major botanical plant name reference sites! But I finally found it on the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and the correct spelling was Impatiens psittacina. IPNI said the plant was from India. No other information was listed.
No photo could be found in any botanical source. None. That made me really suspicious. The Latin name "psittacina" means "parrot-like", but if no photo could be found on a verifiable source was it possible someone had run across the name and set out to create a fake flower? Many plants have the botanical name "psittacina" and all bear at least some resemblance to a bird. Could someone have simply decided to call their creation the "Rare Thailand Parrot Flower"? I began to send email to the government of Thailand and was directed to an agency called the Plants of Thailand Research Unit. At first I was told they knew nothing about the plant. That tripled my suspicion. Surely the agency in the government responsible for knowing what grows within the country would have information! Finally, after numerous requests, I was told it was a very rare plant from the north of Thailand and was illegal to own, collect, or export the plant or seeds. No other information was provided. My suspicion went wild! Almost anything is for sale in Thailand! Anything! If it actually lived in Thailand someone would be selling the plant! This had to be a hoax.From there I began to contact plant nurseries in Thailand. I got the same response. A friend who has contacts in Thailand asked one of his associates to check on the plant. Same story. It was supposedly rare and illegal to possess or export. A few Thai growers were obviously unhappy with my request for information having apparently been flooded with email requests for the plant. It appeared as though any information from Thailand would not be easy to find.I then began trying to contact botanical gardens in India. No response. I tried to locate rare Impatiens growers in the United States and Europe. I managed to find several. None had ever seen the plant! Many who had seen the photos thought the entire story was a hoax. Then I received an email from an individual associated with a garden seed supplier. That individual was certain this whole thing was a hoax and encouraged me to drop my search. He felt the photos were computer generated and I was just wasting my time. In his opinion, any plan to post anything about the "species" on my website would be foolish.As a retired commercial photographer I'm trained in the useof PhotoShop (PhotoShop is a brand name of Adobe,
With my associates we've put together some "impossible" images by combining numerous photographs. So I began to closely examine the photos of the "Rare Thailand Parrot Flower" for traces of the tell-tale signs that often accompany PhotoShop retouched photographs. None could be seen other than the fact the edges of the photos were "feathered" which is often done in PhotoShop.
.But then I ran across a mention of Impatiens glandulifera. Some people on a plant discussion site felt the "rare parrot flower" was actually that invasive species. That flower actually looked a great deal like the "tail feathers" of the "Rare Thailand Parrot Flower" but not the flower itself. Perhaps some talented PhotoShop "genius" had actually created the parrot flower by combining several flower photographs. It was beginning to appear someone had used the scientific name and dreamed up the "Rare Thailand Parrot Flower"! Well, for a short while. Someone finally pointed out the name Impatiens psittacina could even be found in English within the Thai characters surrounding some of the photos.The more I researched the more I began to believe this "plant" was simply a fake composite creation. But there was a major doubt. There were at least 5 photographs on the internet from 5 different angles. And PhotoShop alone would not be capable of creating all the angles. It would require a very sophisticated and very expensive computer system to do all that work capable of "photo modeling". Someone would have had to spend days if not weeks and an unreal amount of money and equipment creating all those angles and still make them all look real! In the early days of computer photo retouching I had spent up to $5,000 on my client's behalf retouching a single photograph with those expensive programs! Surely no one would waste that much time, effort and money on a hoax.Finally I began to get emails from Florida. A plant researcher named Julius Boos was convinced the "Rare Thailand Parrot Flower" existed. And for good reason. He had seen it! I knew Julius. He is a plant expert and extremely knowledgeable. Within days Julius emailed me a copy of the original botanical text which he found through an Impatiens expert in London. The original botanist described the Impatiens as looking like a cockatoo suspended by a string from it's shoulders. And though not perfectly, his original drawing closely matched the photographs! Could the Parrot Flower be real?In fact, it is a rare species from several small geographic regions in Asia: northern Thailand, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and one state in India adjacent to those countries. The people of Thailand have a name for the plant, and call it "Dork Nok Khaew". Literally translated that says: Dork or Dok = flower, Nok = bird, and Khaew = green or word for parrot. So the translation would be Flower Bird Parrot. Besides the original published scientific work by botanist Hooker, it is also listed in the scientific text Flora of India Volume 4. The Parrot Flower exists, and it is not an orchid despite the claims on one site that uses it to promote their services!! Orchids have three petals and three sepals and are a very distinctive group of plants. This specimen is a member of the Impatiens family!
The main blooming season for the Impatiens in Thailand is October and November. Some sources claim it is found in Vietnam and the Himalayas as well as neighboring countries but that cannot be confirmed scientifically. Julius' research had located several people who had visited Thailand, met with the photographer who originally posted the now famous photographs, had seen the plant and knew a great deal about the rare Impatiens species. He had tracked down an Impatiens expert in the United Kingdom who was able to furnish the sought after original botanical publication containing the description, drawings of Impatiens psittacina, and other helpful information.The plant was originally published in 1901 in a British publication, the Curtis Botanical Journal Magazine, Tab 7809. Credited as having been discovered in the Shan States of Upper Burma in 1899 by an individual named A.H. Hildebrand, in that publication botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker described the species almost exactly as it is seen in the photographs. Hooker lived from 1817-1911 and is the botanist of record who named the species. Hooker examined specimens grown from wild collected seed from either Burma or far eastern India at the Royal Botanical Garden Kew in Britain but did his original work on the plant in Calcutta, India. It is unclear whether Hooker drew his work from a live specimen or preserved flowers. At that time drawings from dried specimens were permitted. Hooker said the plants in England did not produce seed, possibly due to the lack of natural pollinators. In the 100 plus years that have since passed the colors of Hooker's ink drawings have obviously faded so the colors of his drawings are no longer an exact match to the color of the flower as it is seen in nature.Julius also managed to find information about the Thai grower who first posted the now famous photographs on the internet all with text in the Thai language. A Thai native, he is also an experienced plant grower. The flower, which resembles a multi-colored flying parrot, is an overall "blue" flower with reds and other accent colors. Sources that preferred to remain unnamed described the flower as "somewhat difficult" to cultivate. It is my belief they did not wish to be identified because they actually possess the plant and do not want people climbing their fence to steal a specimen! The flower is said by the Thai source to be seen in the wild in several color combinations, mainly in pink and yellow. Even those were reported to be "tricky to grow". The plant is apparently truly rare in nature and is not the "invasive vine" many on the internet have claimed. Those now famous photographs were taken by the Thai grower of a plant collected in 2001 near Chiang Mai, N. Thailand. At this point the very rare plant is not available and will not likely ever be available at your corner nursery. There is a link at the top of this page which explains why you will likely never be able to own or grow the species.Despite my having posted what Julius and I learned on my own website, The Exotic Rainforest, many people still believe it is a farce. A fellow in Nova Scotia, Canada was spreading the word I personally created the "scam" and pasted the internet photos of the flower into the botanical drawings to drive traffic to my website so I could sell some bogus plant. Numerous other websites picked up similar claims the photos are a hoax and posted the claim on a variety of bulletin boards. The garden bulletin board where those claims were posted has now elected to remove them due to the negative publicity created for their own site once I called their bluff. That site was owned by a garden related publication and didn't want to be found out to allow non-scientific information on their site. The problem with their theory is the Exotic Rainforest is a private botanical garden in NW Arkansas: a plant collection. It is not a plant retailer. We sell a few plants, but very few each year. I collect plants! Click on the "Plants Offered" link on the homepage of this site and you'll quickly find our policy on plant sales.I have stated publicly many times I do not have the Parrot Flower and can't tell you where to the plant or seeds.So why do so many people believe this rare Impatiens species does not exist? It appears even those who are knowledgeable about Impatiens don't know very much about the rare plants in this genus. I recently ran across a very nice website which specializes in Impatiens plants. On that site I found this quote: "To begin with, there are approximately 36 species of impatiens in the world". I make no claim to be an Impatiens expert, but based on my limited research into the group I knew that statement could not be correct! I went to TROPICOS (Missouri Botanical Garden) which is a scientific plant name database. I did a search for Impatiens species and found there are more than 500 Impatiens species in the world, many quite rare! http://www.tropicos.org/One other very interesting fact has recently surfaced. The interest in the plant in Thailand has "flowered". The Thai tour company Tourdoi is now taking people on tours to see the rare plant in nature. Tourdoi has many photos of the plant on their own website, some with people looking at the flower at close range. Someone at that company emailed a large number to this site and you'll find those on several of our pages. The Canadian individual even set out on the same bulletinboard to accuse Tourdoi of inventing the "fraud" tour to sell tickets! Seems he and others believe if you can't easily find the plant on the internet, or it at a dime-store nursery, it must be a fraud. Many people forget there are still public libraries and scientific databases with vast selections of good scientific information and texts available where serious researchers can find information. Not everything can be found on your desktop computer!
But if you still don't believe Impatiens psittacina exists just take a trip to Thailand in October or November. Besides taking a vacation you can see the flower for yourself! I now know of one individual in the U.S. and one in Europe who have acquired the plant and are attempting to cultivate it. Another individual has recently begun advertising seeds on the internet. Do they have them? I have no idea! I also know of people from Canada and other countries who have claimed to have the plant but their photographs are of totally different species. Even though we don't have the plant we do have a planting guide from Thailand! All we need is seeds but they are simply not available!
Whether it looks like a hoax or not, the Rare Thailand Parrot Flower truly exists. If you'd like to see the botanical drawing and read more about the search you can find it on the Exotic Rainforest, Rare Thailand Parrot Flower SP.html Find the pages on the web under the scientific name: Impatiens psittacina or simply click the link at the bottom of this page.This article was researched and written by Steve Lucas
www.ExoticRainforest.com
This text is a copyright protected text.
Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Steve Lucas, The Exotic Rainforest, www.ExoticRainforest.com
After more than 25 years in South Florida, Steve Lucas is a retired commercial photographer and writer
living in Siloam Springs, Arkansas who has published more than 300 national magazine articles.Despite the fact I say several times on this website I don't have the species, some folks appear to enjoy sending email asking us to sell them a Parrot Flower plant. Sorry, we do not have this plant.
I gladly try to answer email questions but email asking to Impatiens psittacina will be ignored.