Having babies or trapping and consuming animals are characters of animals, but some species of plants in Vietnam also have these abilities and other special functions.

Plants can also ‘have babies.’ This phenomenon only happens for some species of mangrove in coastal areas. They also blossom, pollinate to create seeds like other plants. However, if seeds of other plants split from mother trees to grow up, seeds of these species sprout and develop into saplings on the mother trees. After that, they separate from the mother trees to strike root into the coastal mud.

This is a unique form of adaptation to enable trees from growing in areas where tide rises and ebbs everyday. By developing on mother trees, seeds are not swept away by tide.

Tropical pitcher plant (Nepenthaceae) can trap and consume insects. These trees appear in swamps in central Vietnam.

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) - The fruit of the cashew tree is an accessory fruit (sometimes called a pseudocarp or false fruit). What appears to be the fruit is an oval or pear-shaped structure, a hypocarpium that develops from the pedicel and the receptacle of the cashew flower.

The true fruit of the cashew tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become the cashew apple. Within the true fruit is a single seed, the cashew nut. Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense the nut of the cashew is a seed.

One-leaf orchid (Nervilia fordii Schultze) has only one leaf. This species is also a valuable medical plant. One-leaf orchid is often found in the central highlands.

Legendary flower named udumbara, which is believed to blossom each 3,000 years. Udumbara has been discovered in Phu Yen and Hai Phong provinces. There is a controversy over udumbara in Vietnam.

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea) - trees with underground fruit.

Source: VNN