Cloaked in Mystery: Brazilian Red Cloak
Thousands of plants thrive under the care of National Aquarium staff. Let's take a look at how we care for a Brazilian red cloak.
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The Brazilian red cloak has a surprising number of secrets for a plant. First of all, it's not native to Brazil. It's actually native to the rain forests of Venezuela, Costa Rica and other countries, but no one knows where its name came from. At the National Aquarium, staff have cared for a Brazilian red cloak for years in our Upland Tropical Rain Forest exhibit. With their expertise, let's get to the bottom of this plant's many mysteries.
What Is It Hiding?
Thankfully, this plant hides nothing nefarious. Known for its lush appearance, the Brazilian red cloak is a showstopping shrub. It grows upright, climbing to anywhere from 6 to 15 feet high. It thrives in humid climates in partial shade to avoid bleaching its red bracts, or leaflike structures. These bracts hide white flowers, hence the "cloak" in its name.
"The Brazilian red cloak is easy to care for," said Graham Hunt, the Aquarium's horticulturist for Upland Tropical Rain Forest. "The challenging part of growing it here is that the pionus parrots like to chew on it. I make sure it gets enough water and light to grow fast enough to keep up with the birds' chewing habits. Luckily, it grows quickly."
Are There Others Like It?
What do narwhals, platypuses and Brazilian red cloaks have in common? They're all the only animal or plant in their genus! Scientists use taxonomy to sort living organisms to help us better understand them. The taxonomic groups in order are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Domain is the most general group and sorts living things based on cell structure. Species is the most specific and sorts living things by their ability to successfully breed with each other.
Genus is toward the bottom of the list, which means it's a fairly specific category. However, it's unusual for an organism not to share a genus with anything. But this doesn't mean the narwhal, platypus and Brazilian red cloak don't have any relatives. Narwhals and beluga whales belong to the same family, platypuses and echidnas belong to the same order, and Brazilian red cloaks belong to a family with hundreds of other plants. Because they all share families or orders with other organisms, they also share all the broader taxonomic groups with even more organisms, too!
The next time you visit Upland Tropical Rain Forest, come find the Brazilian red cloak and see that it's not so mysterious after all!