Plants of Trinidad & Tobago

The Balata is among the tallest and most commercially significant hardwood trees of Trinidad and Tobago's rainforests. Prized for its extraordinarily…

Balisier is a tall, robust heliconia of Trinidad and Tobago's rainforest and mountain forest edges, its upright flower spikes with bold red and yellow…

Ball Moss is one of the most visible plants in Trinidad and Tobago despite being one of the least noticed: a small, grey-green atmospheric bromeliad that…

The Bird's-nest Fern is one of the most immediately recognisable plants of Trinidad and Tobago's moist rainforests: a large epiphytic fern whose…

The Black Mangrove grows in the landward zone of Trinidad and Tobago's coastal wetlands, behind the Red Mangrove fringe, tolerating higher salinity and…

Bois Bande is one of the most culturally embedded plants in Trinidad and Tobago's folk tradition: a slender understorey tree of montane forest whose…

The Bois Immortelle is one of the most iconic trees in Trinidad, its brilliant orange-red flowers blazing across the Northern Range hillsides every dry…

Trinidad and Tobago is home to over 200 native orchid species, an extraordinary richness for islands of their size. Catasetum macrocarpum is among the…

The Bucket Orchid has one of the most extraordinary pollination mechanisms in the plant kingdom: it lures male orchid bees with aromatic oils, causes them…

The Butterfly Orchid produces what are arguably the most convincingly insect-like flowers of any plant: a single bloom at a time on a long spike, its…

Buttonwood is an associate mangrove species that grows at the landward and upland edges of mangrove systems, often where conditions are too dry or too…

Cacao is a small understorey tree of deep historical and economic significance in Trinidad and Tobago. Introduced from the Americas centuries ago and…

The Calabash Tree is one of the most culturally embedded trees in Trinidad and Tobago, its large, round, hard-shelled fruits providing the raw material…

The Cannonball Tree is one of the most extraordinary-looking trees in Trinidad and Tobago, producing its large, intensely fragrant flowers and heavy,…

The Chaconia is the National Flower of Trinidad and Tobago. Known locally as "Wild Poinsettia" or "Pride of Trinidad and Tobago," it is a forest shrub or…

The Cocorite is one of Trinidad's most ecologically important native palms, a tall, solitary canopy palm whose dense clusters of orange-red fruits are a…

Courbaril, known locally as locust, is one of the largest and most ecologically important trees of Trinidad's rainforests, a towering legume with a…

Crapaud Bois, known internationally as Andiroba or Crabwood, is a large canopy tree of Trinidad's lowland and swamp-edge forests whose large, oily seeds…

Fever Grass - known worldwide as lemongrass - is one of the most ubiquitous and beloved medicinal and culinary herbs in Trinidad and Tobago, found in…

The Giant Bromeliad is a keystone plant of Trinidad's highest peaks. Its massive rosette of stiff leaves collects rainwater in a central tank that can…

Ginger Thomas is one of the most familiar flowering shrubs in Trinidad and Tobago, its clusters of bright yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers a constant…

The Golden Leather Fern is one of the largest ferns on Earth and the only fern capable of surviving periodic seawater flooding. It grows at the landward…

The Golden Polypody is one of the most striking and widespread epiphytic ferns in Trinidad and Tobago, its large, deeply lobed blue-green fronds arching…

Guava is one of the most ecologically significant pioneer trees of Trinidad and Tobago's disturbed and secondary landscapes. Native to tropical America…