U.S. Botanic Garden

For my last set of pictures from Washington, DC, I'll show you around the United States Botanic Garden. The Botanic Garden is a museum made up of plants.

Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol

Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol

Since it was kind of chilly outside on the day that I went to the Botanic Garden, I stayed inside and walked around the Conservatory. That's the big glass building in the pictures above.

The first thing we looked at was a special exhibit called Exposed: The Secret Life of Roots. Have you ever wondered what the underground parts of plants look like? This exhibit shows you!

Photo courtesy U.S. Botanic Garden

Here I am getting a good look at the roots of some of the plants that grow on the prairie in Kansas.

The roots of the plants are specially treated so that they don't dry out or break easily - and so that visitors can touch them!

In the main part of the Conservatory, I saw many plants that humans use for food. Here's one that I bet a lot of you like. Can you guess what it is?

Here is a hint: the scientific name of the plant is Theobroma cacao. Does the second word look like any other words that you know?

Maybe...cocoa?

Yep, that's a chocolate tree! The cocoa beans are inside of those orange pods. There are a lot of steps between harvesting the pods and having a finished chocolate bar, so the Botanic Garden doesn't make chocolate out of these pods.

Photo courtesy of US Agricultural Research Service

 I also took a walk in the Jungle Room at the Botanic Garden. The Jungle Room has a walkway that lets you walk through the treetops!

I also found this very strange cactus.

I thought that all cacti lived the desert and had prickly spines. But I learned that Rhipsalis grows in tropical rainforests! Emily told me that there are even cacti that grow in Michigan. Here is a picture of one - it is called a prickly pear.

Photo courtesy of University of Michigan Herbarium

I saw many more plants at the Botanic Garden, but there was one plant that I didn't get to see: the eight foot tall titan arum. The titan arum is also known as the corpse flower because it is smells pretty rotten. Even though I missed it, I was able to find a video showing it bloom: