Are you looking for new and unusual plants for your garden? Are you hoping to find something that will stand out and make you the talk of the town?

Look no further for I have assembled this unusual collection of rare plants and flowers for your reading pleasure. Take your pick from this odd assortment and your garden will never be the same again!

For my first selection, you’ll have to travel deep in the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo. There you’ll find the Rafflesia Arnoldii better known as the “corpse flower.”

Unlike other plants, the corpse flower has no noticeable leaves, stem or roots. This parasite lives on the Tetrastigma vine which also grows in rainforests. Like fungi, it gets water and other nutrients from its host. What makes the plant unique is the fact that it produces the largest individual flower on earth. The flower is huge – over three feet across – and has a reddish-brown color.

It has a hole in the center that can hold about seven quarts of water. Its moniker comes from the fact that it stinks of rotting flesh much like a corpse. The bad smell attracts flies that pollinate the plant.

After years of searching, you’ve finally found your soul mate. It wasn’t easy at first but you did it.

As your wedding day approaches, however, you’re afraid – very afraid. The reason? You might go overboard on your decorating budget and spend the rest of the month eating at 7-11!

Fear not for I have the answer. Below are some tips to help you save money on flowers courtesy of Meredith Waga Perez, owner of NYC’s Belle Fleur.

Flowers are nice to look at and make any wedding special. But filling vases with expensive flowers can cost much. To get the same effect without spending much, float three flower heads in a crystal bowl. This will impress people and save you a bundle.

Want your bride to walk on roses like a queen? Or looking for something to scatter at tables to accent those lovely candlesticks? Instead of going for full blossoms, use rose petals.

Perez said 15 roses will give you about 200 petals – which is a good amount to begin with. For a bigger bargain, buy roses by the pound and walk like a god!

It’s nice to get fresh flowers from someone who cares about you. But it’s even nicer if you know how to care for them. This will ensure that they last longer than expected and will also tell the giver that you value his or her investment.

Caring for flowers is like caring for babies minus the diapers. This short article will tell you how to do that and help you enjoy the beauty of flowers for a longer time.

First, make sure your “baby” is clean and well fed. Feed your flowers with enough clean water so they won’t die of thirst. If you received a lovely floral arrangement, your work is almost done. Simply keep the oasis foam wet and you’re okay.

If the flowers were delivered in a vase, see to it that all stems are in the water. If not, add more water and cut off a little portion of the stem.

“Should you get a bunch of cut flowers that are not in water, you’ll need to act quickly. Pull off any leaves that would be under water – they’ll just rot and breed bacteria. Then cut off about an inch from the bottom of each stem and get them into water,” said Herb Weisbaum of MSNBC.Com.

Have you ever wondered why that lovely flower you’re holding smells good? Believe it or not, this is a natural mechanism that’s important to the plant’s survival.

We spray perfume on our bodies to smell good and attract members of the opposite sex. In a way, this is what flowers do.

Like humans, flowers need to reproduce or face extinction. They do this by producing pollen grains that need to reach other flowers. This is where pollination comes in.

Pollination is the process where pollen is transferred from one flower to another for the sexual reproduction of plants. This is accomplished in two different ways.

In abiotic pollination, pollination is done without the help of other organisms or pollinators. This is accomplished mostly by the wind (a process called anemophily) that carries the pollen to other plants. Another form of abiotic pollination is hydrophily or pollination by water which is common in aquatic plants.

Abiotic pollination occurs in only 20 percent of plants. Of that number, anemophily accounts for 98 percent of pollination while two percent is by hydrophily.

Flowers are valued for their beauty, fragrance and they joy they give to those who receive them. Indeed, nothing conveys the whole spectrum of human emotions as well as flowers – the reason why almost everyone loves them.

However, these symbols of love, friendship and beauty can be deadly too. That’s because many flowers that you find outside – and sometimes inside your home – can be dangerous. It’s not uncommon to find poisonous flowers around you so it’s better if you know what you’re dealing with.

Although plants are not the main reason for poisonings reported throughout the world, they are responsible for many cases of unintentional poisonings, especially among children.

“Surveys of calls to Poison Information Centers in Germany and the United States show that ingestion of plants is responsible for a significant number of calls (10 percent of all inquiries), but that serious poisonings are rare. Plants were responsible for five percent of pediatric poisoning cases seen in Finnish hospitals and 28 percent of calls to a poison information center,” according to Michael Eddleston of the Center for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford in England, and Hans Persson of the Swedish Poisons Information Center in Stockholm, Sweden.

What’s the easiest way to help sick people recover? Give them a bunch of flowers and you’ll be doing them a favor.

That’s the advice of Kansas State University researchers who recently looked into the effects of flowers on recovering patients.

In their study titled “Effects of Flowering and Foliage Plants in Hospital Rooms on Patients Recovering from Abdominal Surgery”, Seong-Hyun Park and Richard H. Mattson of the Department of Horticulture, Forestry and Recreation Resources at Kansas State University in Manhattan, found that seeing green had a positive effect on people.

The study was carried out in surgical patients. Ninety people who had their appendix removed were randomly assigned to different rooms with or without plants.

“Patients in the plant treatment room viewed eight species of foliage and flowering plants during their postoperative recovery periods. Data collected for each patient included length of hospitalization, analgesics used for postoperative pain control, vital signs, ratings of pain intensity, pain distress, anxiety, and fatigue,” the researchers said.

At the end of the study, researchers said those who stayed in rooms that had potted flowering plants were better off. They needed fewer painkillers, had a lower heart rate and blood pressure, and were more relaxed.

Want to have a good night’s sleep? Smell some roses in your garden and you’ll get rosier dreams.

This rosy connection was discovered by researchers from the University Hospital Mannheim in Germany who said that what you smell may influence your dreams.

Their new research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Foundation in Chicago. It is the first study that shows the impact of olfactory function on dreams.

“If odor has a strong effect on your emotions when you’re awake, it makes sense for it to have a strong effect on your emotions when you’re asleep,” said study author Boris Stuck.

To prove this, they recruited 15 healthy young women in their 20s – the period when the sense of smell is strongest.

The volunteers were fitted with olfactometers. Tubes leading to their nostrils constantly pumped air as the subjects slept.

“The subjects’ brain activity was also being monitored. When they reached the rapid-eye-movement stage of sleep, when most dreams occur, a shot of scent was administered via the olfactometer for ten seconds,” reported Rebecca Carroll of National Geographic News.

What’s small, has shiny bright red wings, a black head and legs and is capable of destroying a lot of ornamental plants? It’s the red lily beetle and it’s the terror of many gardeners worldwide.

Also known as the lily leaf beetle, this small insect is notorious in areas where lilies are cultivated. First seen in Montreal, the red lily beetle has spread throughout Canada and in some parts of the United States.

“They are often confused with the cardinal beetles since they also have a black underside and wings that are spotless and red in color. However, lily leaf beetles have wings that are shinier with tiny dimples on them. They are more rounded in shape compared to the dull, narrow, flattened and elongated cardinal beetle,” according to the editors of Wikipedia.

“Another difference between the two is their food preference. Lily leaf beetles are herbivores and are usually found on lily plants eating their leaves whereas cardinal beetles are usually found on tree barks and flowers and feed on flying insects. Lastly, the cardinal beetle has comb-like antennae,” they added.

If you like weird flowers, you’ve come to the right place. In this article – the second of a series – you’ll find another odd plant that will make your garden unique.

Introducing the Titan Arum which is also known as the “corpse flower” or “corpse plant.” Not to be confused with the other corpse flower that I discussed previously, the Titan Arum or Amorphophallus Titanum is a flowering plant that holds the distinction of having the largest unbranched inflorescence or compound flower in the world.

The plant was christened “Titan Arum” by the British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough who thought that the name Amorphophallus was not appropriate for his TV viewers.

Discovered by the Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari in Sumatra in 1878, the Titan Arum grows in tropical rainforests and produces only a single flower every few years. The plant blooms a few times in its 40-year lifespan. But this is usually a major event that is crucial for the plant’s survival.

If you have a bizarre taste in plants, I guarantee that this variety – the third in our series – will be to your liking.

The Welwitschia Mirabilis looks like an alien life form from a science fiction movie. It has a short thick trunk and only two leaves that grow continuously throughout the entire life of the plant.

The leaves can grow to a length of two to three meters and are split into several sections. The stem normally gets thicker than higher although it can grow to six feet high and 24-feet wide.

The long leaves of the plant are equipped with special structures that absorb water from the dew that forms during the night. Both male and female species of the plant produce nectar that attracts insects thus aiding in fertilization.

This tongue-twister is found mainly in the Namib desert in southwest Africa. It’s considered a living fossil since it has existed since the Jurassic period.

With that in mind, you never have to worry about losing this plant. The Welwitschia will keep you company for ages since it lives for 1,000 to 2,000 years – more than people do. That makes it a good conversation piece that you can hand down from generation to generation.